


All My Secrets

by QueenAlien94



Category: Tokio Hotel
Genre: Angst, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2018-10-20 10:17:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 92,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10660488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenAlien94/pseuds/QueenAlien94
Summary: Tom Kaulitz has gained a reputation as being cold, ruthless, straightforward and harshly direct.While his twin brother receives everyone's sympathy, as the 'stronger one', Tom has always been left on his own to deal with the obstacles of life. He had learnt how to cope with pressures alone.But Tom has spent the best part of his twenties in a long term relationship which ended suddenly and against his will. No one told him that he would have to handle this alone.But life goes on and when someone new enters his life to help, it is exactly what he needs. Because Tom Kaulitz is not a cold man. Just an isolated one.This is a love story. But not a story of a love of two people. It is a story of learning to love yourself when you never have before.





	1. Prada

Tom wasn’t one for Gucci. Or Louis Vuitton. Or designers in general, really. He was quite happy in ripped band t-shirts and borrowing anything plain Bill had languishing in the back of his closet. Most of the clothes he owned nowadays were ones he’d bought several years ago and nothing he owned cost more than €150, save for a few leather jackets and pairs of jeans. Like the black and white striped sweater, he was currently wearing; he’d had it for eight years and had got it for €20 in a Ludwig Beck sale. Whereas Bill relished spending hours in luxurious fashion houses, looking at every single piece and trying most of them on, Tom could not think of a worse way to spend his time but he accompanied his brother every time.

“Out of the goodness of my heart,” He would say. Though, really, it was because he rather enjoyed the attention from the stunning sales assistants.

So he let Bill drag him to Prada across town.

“So what do you need?”

“Socks.”

“ _Socks_?” Tom wasn’t sure why he reacted with surprise. Bill never wanted to go to the shops for anything substantial, like an actual outfit. He usually needed something rather mundane and then would see something entirely unnecessary and then his mind would start to wander. Then he would be annoyed when Tom would leave to grab a burrito.

“You can’t bring Mexican food into a Dolce and Gabbana!”

Maybe you could in a Prada.

“Yeah, I need black socks.”

“You have loads of black socks.”

“I need soft black socks.”

“What, are all of your black socks made of sandpaper?”

“Shut up, Tom,” Bill pouted, crossing his arms while Tom drove across the city. Soon, Tom parked and watched as Bill hopped out of the car and all but skipped over to the shop. Tom internally groaned and his eyes drifted over to a nearby McDonalds. He hadn’t visited McDonalds since they turned vegetarian and had never really given it a second thought but lately nothing seemed more appealing to him than a double cheeseburger and 24 chicken nuggets. The only thing that stopped him marching right over there was the lecture he knew he would have to endure from Bill. He wasn’t sure anything was worth that.

So he sighed to himself and reluctantly followed Bill inside, where he was already chatting away with one of the sales assistants and Tom began the obligatory vague walk around. He wandered around the store, peering at each item, pretending he might be interested. There weren’t many people there, just one or two men in flash suits looking over at him with disapproval at his oversized sweater and ripped jeans.

“Can I help you?” Tom looked over in surprise at the woman who had come up beside him and was flashing a wide smile. He had never seen an overweight woman work at a designer house before.

“Uh no, I’m good, thank you.”

“Please let one of us know if you do,” She smiled at him widely again and Tom’s gaze followed her as she disappeared into the back. He didn’t know that such upmarket stores even hired fat girls; everyone he had ever seen work at one always had perfect figures.

“Tom!” He spun around at the sound of his name to find Bill bounding up to him, “They have the perfect outfit for tomorrow night in the back, you mind waiting for a bit?”

“How long?”

“Not long, maybe twenty minutes.”

“Sure, go ahead.” As Bill flounced off, Tom grinned to himself. He knew perfectly well that ‘twenty minutes’ meant about two hours so as soon as Bill went into the personal shopper section, Tom hurried out of the store and started heading over to the nearby McDonald’s he had eyed earlier. Being a Tuesday, the streets were relatively empty so Tom didn’t worry too much about being recognised – especially on such an upmarket boulevard. Though why there was a McDonald’s in such an area, he wasn’t quite sure.

Nevertheless, he headed inside and mentally rehearsed just asking for fries and a cola. He would _not_ ask for a cheeseburger. Even though the thought of it was making him salivate.

So he waited in line, his hat pulled down low and his scarf pulled up around his mouth. It was an automatic reaction but he needn’t have bothered, the place was nearly empty and it wasn’t long before he got served. He was oddly proud when he asked for just a large fries and cola and took his food to a small table in the corner. He ate while staring at the wall in front of him and ignoring the constant vibrating of his phone in his pocket. Every second of the day someone was messaging him. If it wasn’t Bill, it was Georg or Gustav. Or his mother. Or one of their friends from LA. Or someone from Treehouse Ticketing or the record label. Or, worse, his lawyer. And so he mostly ignored his phone nowadays and would scroll through every few hours, ignoring all messages except those that were important and those from Bill and his mother.

“Hello again!” Tom snapped his head up to see the shop assistant from Prada before him, still smiling as widely as she had in the store, holding a tray of food.

“Oh, hi. You wanna join me?” As soon as the words slipped out, Tom mentally questioned himself.

“Really? Sure,” She beamed and sat opposite him. She had ordered the same as him – a large fries and cola.

“You…ah…you’re on a lunch break?” He asked as she started eating.

“Not exactly. I’m the manager so can pretty much come and go as I please, you know?” Tom blinked, surprised. He wasn’t sure why, but he never would have imagined that a girl so overweight would be able to even get a job in somewhere like Prada, let alone rise to become a manager. Though he couldn’t say that anyone suited being obese, she did carry her weight well. Her face, her body was soft.

“I went there with my brother but he’s trying on outfits so…”

“So you thought ‘fuck it, I’m hungry’, right?” She said with a grin and Tom laughed.

“Yeah! Yes, exactly,” Tom took a long drink and looked up at her, “I’m Tom.”

“Emilia.”

“Are you from Berlin?”

“Yes, from Spandau. You’re not, are you?”

“No, Magdeburg.”

“Really? You sound American?”

“Oh, right. I’ve lived in California for…fuck, like seven years now.”

As they chatted, it became obvious to Tom that Emilia didn’t know or realise who he was and he wasn’t sure whether to be relieved about that or slightly insulted. Tom didn’t dwell on that point for too long though. He found it surprisingly easy to talk to her and he hadn’t had that sensation in a long time; it was often difficult talking to new people because he usually found that they were more interested in prying into his private life for their own gains. But he talked with Emilia relatively freely. He was still guarded about what he said – he always was – but he could feel that the wall wasn’t built so tall.

“Listen, I should get back to the store,” As Emilia smiled and stood, Tom nearly fell over himself kicking his chair back, standing up alongside her.

“Oh, right, sure. I should catch up on some emails…work, y’know?”

“Sure,” Emilia nodded, “Well, Tom, I guess I’ll see you around.”

Tom watched as she disappeared outside and back to the store. He sat back for a moment, sipping thoughtfully at his drink before the vibration of his phone in his pocket made him remember himself.

_To:_ [tkaulitz1989@treehouse.de](mailto:tkaulitz1989@treehouse.de)

_From:_ [phavers@eversheds.com](mailto:phavers@eversheds.com)

_Subject:                Re: Divorce from Ria Kaulitz_

_Mr T. Kaulitz,_

_We have received communications from Mrs Kaulitz’s lawyers which detail a change in the financial settlement that they are seeking._

_Please contact us as soon as possible to discuss this development._

_Regards,_

_Philip Havers._

All of the light that Tom had been filled with in the past half an hour disappeared as he read the message with his teeth firmly gritted. He had agreed a financial settlement with Ria pretty much as soon as he had filed for divorce and for the past five months, there hadn’t been any mention of a dispute with it.

The fact that she was still going by _Ria Kaulitz_ made his blood positively steam. Why couldn’t she have just a little bit of dignity and go back to Sommerfeld? He honestly thought that she had more integrity than to hang on to his surname.

As much as he wanted to stay put and send light hearted messages to his friends and lose himself in planning the upcoming tour, he simply couldn’t go another minute knowing what was going through Ria’s fucked up head. It was hardly a coincidence that she was trying to be difficult just a week before the new album was going to be released, just a month before the tour started. She knew how much stress he would be under right now and she only sought to add to it.

So Tom reluctantly got up, left and headed back to his car, sighing as he slipped into the leather seat. He took a deep breath and dialled his lawyer’s number.

_“Hello, welcome to Eversheds, how may I help you?”_

“Hi, can you put me through to Philip Havers? It’s Tom Kaulitz.”

_“Of course, Mr Kaulitz, I’ll put you straight through.”_ Tom barely had time to take another breath before the call was transferred.

_“Tom! I’m glad you called so quickly.”_

“What’s going on now? What does she want?”

_“I’ll get straight to it. Ria wants a stake in your house,”_ Tom’s jaw fell open, stunned.

“She…she _what_? How the hell can she do that? I don’t even own it entirely! It’s half Bill’s!”

_“She’s filed for a 12.5% stake in your house. So, a quarter of your half of the equity. Look, this isn’t as bad as it sounds, ok? They know they haven’t got a hope in hell of getting it that they didn’t even bother filing for half of your stake. Don’t worry about it, Tom. Your house is safe. There isn’t a court in California that would give a wife of one year a stake in her husband’s house.”_

“You’re sure about that?”

_“Positive. It’s just them trying to antagonise us to get us to settle out of court. They’re thinking that by suing for equity in the house, they’ll force us to offer alimony payments. But we won’t ok? Your money and your house is safe in my hands, got it?”_

“Sure, thanks, Philip.”

_“No problem, I’ll let you know when there are more developments. Take care, Tom.”_

Tom lit up a cigarette as soon as he hung up the phone. He had never anticipated this. He never thought that he and Ria would ever split up, let alone separate and file for divorce just a year after he watched her walk down the aisle. He remembered their wedding with such blinding precision that it felt like he was still in that moment.

The morning had been almost disastrous. First, they had made the terrible decision of having a glass of Champagne after getting changed for the ceremony and, inevitably, Tom had spilt his glass down his custom made Savile Row suit. Then, he got word that Ria’s sister – her chief bridesmaid – had fallen ill with such a bad stomach bug that she was bedridden, which caused the ceremony to be postponed by an hour because Ria had cried her makeup off. _Then,_ the harpist they had hired to play their song _The Way You Look Tonight_ , just plain didn’t show up. And, to top it off, Bill realised he had lost the wedding rings during the night before, when they had gone out partying.

But when Tom entered the small, perfectly secluded white hut that was suspended on the calm, clear blue ocean of the Maldives, he felt an air of calm settle on his shoulders and nothing that went wrong mattered to him as soon as he saw Ria start to walk down the aisle. Bill had given him his suit, Ria had found a new chief bridesmaid, Georg had found a guitar to play _The Way You Look Tonight_ and Gustav and his wife gave their wedding rings to use during the ceremony.

Tom thought it was the perfect metaphor for his life. Everything was fucked up, then it seemed to have been fixed. But no, really, it was completely fucked up from the very roots and Tom had no idea why.

Tom snapped out of his thoughts by a knock on his car window which made him jump.

“Where have you been?” Bill slid into the seat beside him.

“Oh, sorry, I went to get something to eat.” Tom started up the engine and was just about to pull off when Bill cried out.

“Fuck!”

“What?”

“I left one of my bags in the store, I’ll just-”

“I’ll go get it.”

“Are you-” But Bill couldn’t even finish before Tom had jumped out of the car and was jogging inside the store.

When Tom opened the doors, he immediately saw Emilia behind the counter just finishing a phone call. She soon caught his eye and smiled widely.

“Well, well, can’t stay away, huh?” She grinned as he approached the counter, eliciting a chuckle.

“My brother left a bag here, do you have it?”

“Oh, yeah sure, here.” Emilia retrieved a bag from under the counter and passed it across to him.

“Thanks,” Tom gave an appreciative nod and turned to leave. But something made him scratch the back of his neck while awkwardly turning around, “Can I…can I get your number?” Tom was surprised when Emilia looked at him with surprise.

“Oh, did you have a complaint?” Tom looked at her blankly for a moment.

“A what?”

“A complaint?”

“Oh! Oh, no! No, I meant _your_ number. As in, your cell?”

“Oh!” Emilia laughed, “Sorry, I guess I’m just in work mode right now.” She grabbed a business card from the desk and quickly scribbled down her number, passing it over.

“I’ll…I’ll message you.” Tom grinned, slipping the card into his pocket before turning and leaving, heading back out to the car, where Bill was waiting.

“Oh yeah, what’s that smile for?”

“It just brings me such pleasure to bring you your shopping, little brother.”


	2. Balcony

They should play _Black_.

Nah. _In Your Shadow I Can Shine_.

No, a song from _Schrei_ will keep the fans happy.

But _In Your Shadow_ is so much better.

But _Black_ flows into _Easy_ so much more smoothly.

But an acoustic version of _In Your Shadow_ would be so beautiful.

“Fuck sake.” Tom muttered, slamming down the lid of his laptop.

Aside from _Durch den Monsun_ – which was a given – Bill and Tom had decided to carry on with what they had started in the last tour and play an old, unexpected song. The problem was choosing it. They had tried searching Twitter and Instagram but everyone just seemed to want _Ich Bin Nich’ Ich_ , which, aside from being a song they wrote when they were _literally twelve_ , simply couldn’t fit into the set anywhere. It would be too off, too jarring. After that, everyone just wanted shit songs like _Jung und Nicht Mehr Jugendfrei,_ (seriously? They were twenty-fucking-seven!) _Don’t Jump_ (a great song, just incredibly depressing) and anything Billy.

With Alex Claster apparently coming to their show in Berlin, putting anything Billy into the setlist was strictly out of the question. If Bill started singing _Love Don’t Break Me_ or _Odds are Against Us_ and Tom caught even the slightest off look on Alex’s face, he wasn’t sure he could trust himself not to jump off the stage and punch the cunt in the throat.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t really the setlist that was stressing Tom out.

It was everything.

_Dream Machine_ was being released in just a few days’ time and Bill was already freaking out. When he released his EP, he received a lot of messages and phone calls from Alex and Bill wasn’t in a strong enough place to resist talking to him. His resolve was stronger now, Tom knew that, but neither of them could know how Bill might react if Alex listened to songs like _Easy_ or _Better_. He was a manipulative man and he was extremely good at manipulating Bill. Tom too, actually. He had liked Alex. Thought he was a good guy. Thought he was what Bill needed, both emotionally and physically.

Tom would never forget the murderous rage he felt the time he woke up in the middle of the night to find Bill crying in the kitchen after finding out Alex had fucked someone else.

He’d never forget the frustration he felt when Bill invited Alex over for dinner a week later.

Bill and Tom’s relationship had been hugely strained when it came to Alex. At a time when they should have been closer than ever, Tom found it difficult to be supportive after Bill kept going back to him. Though it pained him to admit it, Tom had grown to resent Bill just a little for letting Alex hurt him, over and over again and then for leaving him to pick up the pieces, over and over again.

“It should be _Black_ ,” Tom looked over as Bill walked in the room, wearing a soft smile, and bearing a plate of sushi and a glass of water, “You’ve been in here for like eight hours and haven’t eaten anything.” Bill sat beside Tom and slid the plate over to him.

“You think so?”

“Yeah. Even though everyone will be dicks and try to make us sing it in German. It suits the show better.”

“Do you remember the lyrics?”

“I can learn.” The two sat in silence for a moment while they ate.

“Are you alright?” Bill asked and Tom looked over at him, a look of surprise on his face.

“Yeah, why?”

“You haven’t mentioned Ria in a while.” Bill asked, tentatively, while Tom just shrugged.

“Nothing to say. We’re still getting divorced. That’s it.”

“She hasn’t gotten in touch?”

“No.”

“We still have a few weeks until the tour, if you want to go to L.A. and-”

“And what? Ask her for the thousandth time why she left me? She won’t give me an answer that I’ll believe, so what’s the point?”

“I’m worried about you. Are you ready to go on tour?”

“I’ll be fine, Bill. Seriously. I’m looking forward to the distraction.” Bill nodded with a smile.

“So, what’s next to agonise about?”

“When the VIPs will come on stage with you.”

“Do you think the fans will be pissed if they come on during _Automatic_?”

“Definitely.”

“Great. _Automatic_ it is.”

Bill started talking about the various costume changes he was going to have during the shows and Tom’s mind started to drift as soon as Bill said, _‘you should wear a ski mask at the beginning’_. He was beginning to have real trouble staying focused as soon as other people came in and interrupted his flow. That was why he hadn’t left his studio in eight hours – because he knew that as soon as he did, he would get distracted by calls, texts, and Bill’s stories. Alas, instead, the distractions had come to him and since other people talked about nonsense that he really didn’t care about, he stopped focusing.

“…and they’ve finished my final outfit, you know, the gold one? So, I’m going to-”

“I’ve got a girl coming over tonight.”

“You…what? Who?”

“You don’t know her. Would you mind going out?”

“Oh, are you going to f-”

“ _No_!” Tom declared, indignant, “I’m not getting laid. We’re just having dinner.” Bill raised an eyebrow.

“If you’re just having dinner, why do I need to leave? I can just go to my bedroom and-”

“Please could you go out? Go to Georg’s or something? His girlfriend is staying with her parents for the weekend so he’s there by himself.” Bill just frowned at Tom, confused.

“Who is she?”

“You don’t know her.”

“What do you mean, I don’t know her? We know all the same people!” Bill looked at Tom, confused as he stood up and grabbed his laptop.

“Not this one. I met her a couple days ago. Will you go out?” Tom asked as he made his way to the door.

“Yeah, sure. When’s she getting here?”

“Eight. So, could you be out of here by like half seven?”

“You sure you don’t want me to help you cook or-”

“I don’t need your help. Thank you. I’m going to reply to some emails, see if Treehouse have sorted out the merchandise.” Before Bill had a chance to respond, Tom had left, shutting the door behind him.

He had just shut his bedroom door when his phone vibrated and a text message from Emilia flashed up on his phone.

_You want me to bring anything? Xx_

_Just yourself will do :-) xx_

Tom wasn’t sure what had compelled him to ask her to dinner the day before. In fact, he still wasn’t sure why he had asked for her number at all. He had been oddly drawn to her and just felt like he couldn’t leave without a way of getting back in touch with her. Before getting together with Ria when he was twenty, he had been on countless dates and hook-ups but after seven and a half years out of the game, Tom felt oddly nervous about the date.

Not that it was a date. Tom just didn’t know how else to characterise it. It wasn’t as if he was attracted to her. And he certainly wasn’t ready to properly _date_.

He sat on his bed and started reading his emails but he couldn’t stay focused now that he had been taken out of his zone. Everything going on wasn’t really that much of a big deal. The merchandise for the tour wasn’t ready, Bill needed to have another fitting for his tour outfits, a dress rehearsal needed to happen before the public one…

All of these issues, and more, could be solved relatively easily with a few emails and some time set aside. But it was just another something that Tom had to sort out because no one else was. Bill and Tom had agreed with Georg and Gustav that they would have most of the creative control over the music and, in return, would bear the administrative burden while they would show up, approve the music, suggest changes and feedback, go on tour, and participate in the meet and greets while enjoying a steady pay check. Tom knew that they were lucky that the Gs’ were perfectly happy in just collecting their pay checks while leaving the twins with most of the control – in fact, they preferred it that way. However, since parting with their major record label and signing with a smaller, Berlin based label, Tom found himself lumbered with everything. The record label, the ticket promoters, the merchandisers, the concert venues. The list of people he had emailing him – in just a professional capacity – took hours to deal with every day and that was before he could start working on the actual music itself.

Tom wouldn’t mind if Bill actually thought to help once in a while. It was all very well to bring him sushi, but he needed _help_ , not food. He tried telling him before, but Bill was pathetic in replying to important emails. He couldn’t make a decision by himself. Should the writing on the tour t-shirts be white or gold? Bill would panic and ask Tom. Should the show end with _Stop, Babe_ or _Durch den Monsun_? Fuck knows, ask Tom. Should Gustav be on the left or right of the stage? Oh no, too difficult, ask Tom.

It was infuriating.

Tom glanced at the clock. 7pm. He groaned, taking the band out of his hair purely so he could run his hand through it in frustration. He popped a painkiller and slammed shut his laptop before rolling off the bed.

“What are you making?” Bill asked the moment Tom stepped foot in the kitchen, where he was sitting, picking at a sandwich.

“Never mind that a moment, what have you eaten today?” Tom asked with a frown as he sat opposite Bill and looked down pointedly at the half cheese sandwich in front of Bill.

“I dunno,” Bill shrugged, “I had a few coffees, some sushi and now this.”

“Are you for real?” Tom said, aghast, “For fuck sake, Bill, are we really going back there again?”

“What? I haven’t been hungry!” Bill protested while Tom scoffed and jumped up, going straight over to the fridge. He took out two thick slices of raspberry cheesecake, put them both on a single plate and put it in front of Bill.

“Eat.”

“Tom, I’m not going to-”

“Eat it. Now.” Tom took a seat back beside Bill.

“Tom-”

“I mean it, Bill. I’m not letting you leave this table until you eat both of those slices.” Tom pushed a fork over to Bill and, with visibly gritted teeth, Bill picked it up and picked off a small amount.

“I don’t have all night,” Tom muttered and watched as Bill ate both pieces of cake, agonisingly slowly before throwing down the fork and standing up.

“Happy?” Bill scowled before marching straight out of the room.

“Oh yeah, I love force feeding my own brother,” Tom mumbled, sighing before grabbing a beer from the fridge and cracking it open.

Bill had had issues with food for years. Since they were kids, really. Their mother would put a plate of food in front of them as soon as they came home from school and Tom would happily wolf down a plate full of potatoes, chicken, and vegetables in about two or three minutes and then nag for dessert as soon as he was finished. Bill, however, would pick. He played with his food. While Tom would grab his knife and fork and shovel food into his face, Bill would cut his food into small pieces then pick them up, exploring the texture before eventually putting it in his mouth. It would drive Tom crazy at school when they would go to the canteen. Bill would take the entire lunch hour to eat a sandwich.

It eventually got better and Tom soon forgot about it as soon as Bill started to eat normally again when they were around twelve and he guessed that everyone just put it down to childhood fussiness. But it flared up from time to time and, each time, it was worse. Tom would never forget the time that they underwent a routine medical exam when they were in the process of renewing their private medical insurance when they were eighteen. While Tom was a perfectly normal weight, Bill was sat down by their doctor and told he was around ten kilograms underweight. They went on tour soon afterwards and he would collapse from exhaustion after every concert. When the tour was over, Tom had forced him to check into a hospital in Zurich.

After that, Bill and Tom became vegetarian and became very conscious of what they ate to ensure that they got enough protein and carbs to sustain their hectic lifestyle. Against all the odds, this actually helped Bill and, though he stayed very slim, he ate plenty of food and gained weight. Moving to America had really helped. The relaxed lifestyle led to Bill venturing out by himself more; he would eat fast food and go to bakeries for cakes and pastries. He would snack and eat a whole pizza to himself. He went to the gym five times a week and bulked out something fierce. Tom had to pump some serious iron to stay bigger.

Then Alex Claster happened.

“I’m going out now.” Bill stood awkwardly in the doorway, holding his car keys and cell phone.

“Ok, I’ll see you later,” Tom replied calmly, staring over at the wall.

“Should I stay out all night?”

“No, she won’t be staying.”

“Really?” Bill smirked, “Doesn’t put out on the first date? That’s a change!” He laughed while Tom turned to look at him, a scowl on his face.

“Maybe she would put out, maybe she wouldn’t. Either way, we won’t be sleeping together. Not that it’s anything to do with you.”

“Fuck, what is _wrong_ with you today? Are you sure you should have a girl come over here while you’re like this?” Bill frowned, cross his arms while Tom just took a drink.

“Are you still here?” Tom muttered and Bill soon took the hint, leaving without a word.

Tom had just finished his beer when his phone started vibrating persistently.

_“Mr Kaulitz, we have a Miss Vogel here to see you.”_

“Yeah, send her up.”

Tom found himself oddly nervous all of a sudden, as if he was sixteen and was having his first girlfriend round and not in his late twenties who had invited over a woman who he wasn’t even attracted to. He was oddly drawn to her, yes but not in a sexual way. How could he find an overweight woman attractive? Tom wrinkled his nose at the very thought.

There was a knock at the door and Tom bounded over to fling the door open, grinning when he saw Emilia standing on his doorstep. He invited her in and showed her through to the lounge area which incorporated the open plan kitchen.

“Do you want a drink? We have beer, wine, water, cola…”

“White wine would be great, thank you.”

“Have a seat,” Tom directed her over to the plush white leather sofas and made his way over to the kitchen. He looked over to her as he poured them both a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. She wasn’t sitting but looking out at the view. The entire back wall was made of glass, looking out over the Greater Wannsee Lake; a spectacular view of the crystal water with a few boats sailing across it in the cool evening sun.

“It’s beautiful,” Emilia smiled over at Tom as he handed her a glass.

“We have a balcony in our recording studio, if you want to sit out there?”

“Oh wow, yeah, sure, that sounds great!” She beamed and Tom took her hand, returning her smile.

“Come with me.”

Tom led her into the next room, their recording studio. It was a stunning room that Tom was very proud of. Dark, wooden flooring, huge mixing boards, half a dozen wide screen television screens across both the extended desk and the walls, a separate glass booth. Most of _Dream_ _Machine_ had been created there.

“Woah…this is incredible!” Emilia exclaimed and Tom looked over at her to see her looking around the room in awe, “Do you make music?”

“You really don’t know who I am, huh?” Tom chuckled while Emilia just looked at him, perplexed.

“What? Who are you?”

“Come on,” He took her out onto the balcony and leaned against the door, grinning to himself as he watched her go straight over to the railings and look out at the evening. Her long, glossy brown waves blew gently in the soft breeze and Tom’s gaze was drawn down across her body. Her tight black vest was tucked into a pair of wide leg orange, white and black patterned trousers with a pair of heels that served only to make her long legs go on even longer and her ass stick out. He couldn’t ever be attracted to someone quite as large as her, Tom couldn’t help but acknowledge that Emilia really was quite radiant.

“So, come on,” Emilia turned around, “Who are you?” With a knowing smirk, Tom pulled out a seat, sitting at the table and implored Emilia to do the same.

“I’m Tom Kaulitz,” He said but she just looked at him, nonplussed, “I’m in Tokio Hotel.” He couldn’t help but laugh as her eyes went wide.

“Fuck off!” She exclaimed, looking at him in realisation, “You’re the one who had all the dreadlocks and-”

“And wore the ridiculously huge clothes?” They both laughed, “Yeah, that’s me.”

“God, I don’t read magazines and I don’t own a television so I didn’t recognise you!”

“Yeah I get that a lot. I’m much sexier nowadays, don’t you think?”

“Oh, for sure!” She laughed before having a drink, “That explains a lot, I couldn’t quite believe it when I drove over here. I thought for sure I must have gotten the wrong address!” She looked out over the vast lake, “It’s beautiful, you’re so lucky to live here.”

“Yeah, we love being in the city…just not _in_ the city, you know? Get more privacy out here.”

“Jeez, and I live in a basement apartment!” She laughed and they made light conversation, talking about her job and the complete assholes she and her staff had to dress. Tom was under no illusions that Bill was almost definitely one of them.

“Hey, you want food? I figured we could get some takeout?” They quickly agreed on pizza, Tom ordered on his phone and brought out a bottle of wine to top up their glasses.

“You trying to get me drunk?” Emilia grinned.

“Maybe. You mind?” Though Tom’s mind couldn’t help questioning how much wine it would take to get a girl like her drunk. Perhaps it was ridiculous but Tom hadn’t ever really hung out with girls as big as Emilia before and though he didn’t think of it for most of their conversation, every so often he would swallow uncomfortably as it popped into his mind. As if it was a bad thing, an unsettling thing. It was natural for him to look at a girl’s chest while he talked to them. But as she spoke and he snuck a glace, he allowed himself only a millisecond before he snatched his eyes away, feeling an odd sense of unease. As if finding a part of Emilia attractive was wrong.

But then again, he had spent the past seven years in a relationship with a stick insect with fake tits so maybe it wasn’t that weird.

When the pizza arrived, Tom went inside to the front door to collect it and as he brought it back inside, he crudely wondered if half a pizza would be enough for her. He soon cut off the thought and frowned to himself, “What is wrong with you?” He muttered to himself quietly, rolling his eyes as he walked back through the studio and back to Emilia on the balcony. He topped their glasses back up and they ate in peaceful silence for just a moment before she broke it.

“So, what made you ask for my number?” She said it lightly but it still took Tom slightly aback before she let out a somewhat embarrassed laugh, “Man, that sounded lame, right?” Her laugh put him at ease and he just leaned back and shrugged, using the bite of pizza in his mouth to buy him a few extra seconds.

“I dunno,” He mentally rolled his eyes at how productively he had used those extra seconds, “You were happy. I don’t come across many happy, positive people.”

“You don’t?” She peered at him, an eyebrow raised, intrigued.

“Not genuinely positive people, no. I told you that we live in L.A., right?” She nodded affirmatively, “Yeah. Well. All the happy people there are depressed. They’re all kept pepped up with whatever pills they can get their hands on. It’s a pretty depressing place if you’re not into that shit, you know?”

“And you’re not?” She asked and Tom could hear the note of scepticism.

“A bit of weed. But no, nothing else.”

“So, it was just because I’m a positive person, huh?” Her sly smile was playful and Tom returned the smirk with a light laugh.

“Well, how could I resist that pretty face?”

Tom mentally groaned. Why did he have to say that? He didn’t want to be attracted to her. She was just someone who he felt connected to, who he wanted to have as a neutral companion. He didn’t have many friends who he was drawn to – and no women friends he was drawn to at all. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t have many friends at all.

The pizza was soon finished and so was the bottle of wine, prompting Tom to go inside and grab another. A bottle of red this time and when he brought it out, Emilia had gotten out of the wooden chair and was sitting on the tiled balcony floor. The lake glittered with the fire of a settling sky as the scene lit up in a burnt orange hue. The water was calm despite the persistent light breeze and Tom sank down on the floor beside her, passing over a filled glass.

“We should go down there. To the beach,” Emilia said softly, taking a long drink, “The beach must be so peaceful at this time in the evening.”

“Yeah, it probably is.”

“You haven’t been?” She asked, surprised. She clearly wasn’t familiar with Bill’s policy of going to public places in Berlin. It was quite simple: he didn’t and didn’t like Tom to do so, either.

“No, never.”

“You should. We should go down there sometime,” Emilia smiled and Tom nodded, swallowing as she leaned her head on his shoulder and he put an unsteady arm around her shoulders.

“Yeah, we should.”


	3. I'm Sorry

“So, did you fuck her?”

“Piss off.”

“That is definitely a yes. Was she good?”

“No!”

“Oh, she was shit, huh? Did you-”

“No, I meant I didn’t fuck her.”

“Really?”

“We had food, had a drink and I called her a taxi at 3am. Happy?”

“She stayed here until three and you didn’t fuck her?”

“What is wrong with you? Do you get turned on by living vicariously through other people’s sexual encounters?”

“What?”

Georg and Gustav just watched as Bill and Tom did their classic back and forth. They were all sat on the floor of the recording studio, eating lunch as they took a break from tour preparation and Bill was relishing the chance to finally grill Tom about his date the evening before.

“We didn’t have sex!”

“You’ve changed. I remember a time when you went out of your way to convince us you’d had sex,” Georg smirked.

“Oh yeah, remember when he tried to convince us he’d fucked six girls in one night?”

“Oh yes! And the time he swore that he’d fucked over 500 girls!”

“When it was only five!”

Tom could only watch with an eyeroll as the other three erupted into fits of laughter at his expensive.

“You,” Tom pointed at Georg, “have bought over a hundred hookers,” he turned to Gustav, “you didn’t lose your virginity until you were twenty-one and _you_ , little brother, take cock up your ass so fuck off!”

“Oh, a gay joke. Classy.” Bill grinned sarcastically and stood up, leaving the studio, shutting the door with a slam, leaving Tom sat on the floor with Georg and Gustav staring at him. They all teased Bill good naturedly and he was more than happy to get into it too, often rubbing his own ass and joking that he hadn’t been able to sit down properly in weeks. But it was an unwritten rule that it would never be mean spirited. Even from Tom.

No. Especially from Tom.

“What the hell was that?” Gustav looked at him, awkwardly astonished.

“Practice your drum solo, I need to talk to him.”

“But I need you to practice!” Tom didn’t answer him and instead clambered to his feet, trudging out of the room to find Bill sitting in the lounge poring over his phone.

“Bill-”

“Come to tell me I’m a faggot?” Bill sniped without looking up and Tom’s shoulder jerked back as if he’d been given a hard push.

“I’m sorry.” Bill didn’t reply for a moment to Tom’s apology, ignoring him to continue playing on his phone. Tom shuffled awkwardly, his arms crossed and head bowed, “Bill, I-”

“I don’t always take cock up my ass, you know,” Bill mumbled, still not looking up but Tom could see the small grin on his lips.

“No?”

“No, I like to show dominance from time to time. Keeps them on their toes.”

“Ah, of course. You want a sandwich? You didn’t have much for lunch just now.” Tom winced as he spoke, quickly mentally preparing himself for Bill to shout at him or at the very least, sink back into his sulk. But he didn’t.

“Can you make me a mozzarella and vine tomato sandwich please?”

“You will get the first thing I pull out of the cupboard, you pompous twat.”

Bill ended up getting a double sandwich filled with paprika crisps which he turned his nose up to at first but soon ate it. Slowly. But he still ate it. Which was enough for Tom. They soon went back into the recording studio and found Gustav rehearsing the drum piece he was due to play with Tom on the tour while Georg was out on the balcony, smoking.

“How long does this drumming thing go on for? Because the costume change I’m doing during it takes forever because of the necklace and crown and I want to-”

“Hey, now we know why Tom was so defensive!” Georg laughed as he came back in, waving a condom wrapper, “Sex on the balcony huh? You dirty shit!” But Tom just stared at Georg with genuine bewilderment.

“Hey, that’s not mine!” Tom protested while Gustav came out of the glass booth.

“What’s going on?” Gustav asked, seeing Georg laughing.

“Tom _did_ fuck his date last night! I found a condom wrapper on the balcony!” They both laughed and Gustav clapped Tom on the back, “You know, I was getting worried about you, I thought your virginity might to growing back!” They both roared with laughter again.

“Guys, seriously! That wrapper isn’t mine.” As Tom spoke, Georg knew him well enough to realise that he was telling the truth while Gustav offered him congratulations.

Tom and Georg exchanged confused looks but, forcefully, Tom pushed it to the back of his mind and entered the glass booth with Gustav to practice their drumming part of the set – an impressive filler for one of Bill’s costume changes that was probably Tom’s favourite part of the show. One of the stage hands would set up a drum set for Tom next to Gustav on the stage and they had a fantastic piece to play for several minutes. Tom loved drumming during a gig, it was a great way for him to release the built-up adrenaline. After practicing for a solid hour - and after Tom’s arms had officially died – they went back out to find Bill booking hotels around Europe in preparation for the tour. Their budget wasn’t great and they booked just two rooms each time they needed one – one for the twins and one for the Gs. Except in Berlin.

“Why are you booking a hotel for Berlin? We all have a place in Berlin to stay?”

“Because by the time the tour bus drops us all back to our places, it’ll be late as fuck. We’ve got an early flight to Stockholm the next day. We should just get a hotel near to the venue.” Bill pointed out as he started typing his credit card details into the website.

“Ok, whatever. Just make sure our room has two double beds. I am _not_ sharing a bed with you again!” Tom rolled his eyes, remembering their last tour when he had to share a bed with Bill several times. Bill was a kicker.

“Oh, I’m getting us different rooms for Berlin.” Bill shrugged, non chalantly.

“You are? Why?”

“In case I pull.”

“In case you pull?”

“Yes.”

“Why would you pull in Berlin and not in Paris or Oslo?”

“Oh…you know, they don’t really have any gay guys about.”

“What, in Paris?”

“Yeah, do you have the schedule? I can’t remember the Russian dates.”

Tom hated it when Bill was cagey. He wasn’t very good at it and would always tell Tom what was going on; it would just take him some rather frustrating three or four hours to do so. But still, he handed over the schedule he had stuffed in his pocket and flopped down on the small sofa in the corner of the room beside Georg.

“If he doesn’t tell you what’s going on tonight, come and see me tomorrow morning,” Georg muttered and Tom turned to him with a frown.

“Of course, he’ll tell me tonight, he always does.” Tom asserted but Georg looked at him doubtfully.

“Just, come over if he doesn’t, ok?”

“Sure.”

Gustav soon left to take his wife and daughter out, he was conscious of quality time before the tour started and he wouldn’t be able to see his family for weeks on end. While Bill went over the show’s organisation with Georg, Tom pulled out his phone to send a message straight to Emilia.

_Can I see you tomorrow? Xx_

_Of course :) Your place? Xx_

_My place to start. See you tomorrow beautiful xx_

Tom sent the message and frowned to himself when he did so. Did he think she was beautiful? He wasn’t sure. She was a pretty girl, sure but Tom was shallow. He had always believed himself to be shallow and that was usually very much reflected in his choice in women. It certainly had been reflected in Ria. She was tall and slight with long, glossy hair and had had a nose and boob job. Physically, she was exactly the kind of girl that he had always expected to end up with. She was also exactly the kind of girl that everyone else expected him to end up with. She had a remarkable mind and a fantastic sense of humour, yes, but Tom had often wondered if he would ever have gotten together with her if she hadn’t had such perky tits and a model face. Being as shallow as he believed himself to be, Tom inwardly cringed as he saw that he had called Emilia ‘beautiful’. It was simple really. As far as Tom was concerned, to guys like him, fat girls couldn’t be beautiful.

“Right, I should go. Meg is expecting me home,” Georg announced, stretching.

“Oh, you should bring her over sometime before we go on tour.” Bill smiled, putting papers away.

“Remember when she told Franz that there’s a fifth member of the band called Gregor who plays the ukulele?” The three burst into laughter at the memory.

“Yeah, and Franz believed her!” Tom laughed.

Georg soon left and Bill and Tom pottered around in the studio for a moment, tidying up. The atmosphere between them was thick and awkward with both aware that the other was hiding something from the other. It was an unfamiliar and rather unsettling feeling that set Tom on edge. They always told each other everything so while Tom’s teeth were gritted as he guessed what Bill was keeping from him; he needed his brother to tell him. During his darkest moments, it was always a source of comfort to know that there was still one person who would never judge him, who would tell him anything and everything to the point where sometimes Tom felt like he _was_ Bill. Agonising over Bill’s problems was often a welcome relief from agonising over his own.

Tom finished what he was doing and went out onto the balcony, taking a seat as he lit up a cigarette.

“Do you have a light?”

“Sure.” Tom passed Bill his light and looked out over the view as they sat together for a moment in silence.

“I guess you wanna know where the wrapper came from, no?”

“Since you didn’t tell me, I’m fairly sure I can make an accurate guess.”

“I’m _sorry_. He just…he turned up here and he said he wanted to talk and explain some things. You know I’ve always wanted answers so I let him in and…” Bill trailed off with a shrug.

“…and you fucked him?” Tom bit out, taking a long drag.

“Oh, it wasn’t _like_ that! He said he missed me, that the EP really opened his eyes and he said he’s been so depressed and that he still loves me!”

“Oh blah, blah, blah! And you bought that? I mean, as lines go, that really is lame as fuck.”

“I know he was talking shit but I’m lonely, Tom. I just wanted a bit of affection.”

“So you gave him exactly what he wanted,” Tom shook his head with a short derogatory laugh, “You’re pathetic, you know that?”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” Bill muttered, his voice thick with emotion and, usually, when Tom heard that cracking note in Bill’s voice, he would have forgotten any anger he had felt and embraced him. But not now.

“I don’t know what it’s like? _I_ don’t know…” Tom trailed off with a disbelieving laugh, “You’re a fucking dick.”

“Tom, I-”

“Fuck yourself, you hear me? Fuck yourself.” Tom kicked back his seat and headed back inside, storming through the apartment to his bedroom. He slammed shut the door and, with his entire body burning with frustrated rage, he clenched a fist and punched the wall. He was so enraged that he didn’t notice his bleeding knuckles as he fell on his bed, burying his face in a pillow. He felt sick. Physically nauseous. Tom had never been a violent person but Alex brought out the absolute worst side of him; a side that he just didn’t recognise. He had already given Alex one black eye, he wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to give him another.

Soon, there was a soft knock on Tom’s bedroom door.

“What?” Tom called out, half-heartedly and the door opened hesitantly with Bill peering around it.

“Can I come in?”

“If you must.”

Bill came in and sat on Tom’s bed with a sigh.

“I know what I did was stupid. I _know_.” Bill sighed, lying down beside Tom, who turned his head to look over at him.

“Why him, Bill? You must have half a dozen guys in Berlin alone you can call for a casual fuck so why him?” Tom said softly, his voice laced with a quiet exasperation. Bill shrugged, fiddling with his rings as he avoided Tom’s eye.

“I told you, he just showed up and I just lost my resolve. He reminds me of happier times, you know? When the four of us would spend all day lounging around smoking weed and all night partying. All of us happy and in love and now…” Bill trailed off with a helpless shrug and Tom sighed, his stomach in a knot, holding Bill’s hand in his, pulling slightly so that Bill reluctantly curled his legs up, nestling his head into Tom’s chest. Tom kissed the top of his head, wrapping his arms around his brother. They used to curl up like this a lot when they were kids. At first to get away from their parents shouting, then to get away from the bullies at school and then the media and crazy fans when they were thrust into the spotlight at the tender age of fifteen. Alex and Ria had thought it was weird but the twins were so close that it was just normal for them.

“I’m sorry about Alex.”

“I’m sorry about Ria,” Bill whispered while Tom rubbed his back affectionately.

“Yeah. Me too.”


	4. Moon

_Busty Teen Fucks Her Lesbian Girlfriend_

_Lesbians Playing with Whipped Cream_

_Teach Me Fisting_

“What have I told you about watching porn in the living room!”

Tom jumped at the sound of Bill’s voice behind him, relieved that he hadn’t yet found a video worth taking his jeans off for.

“I’m not watching porn. I’m browsing,” Tom smirked, crossing his arms as Bill sat beside him, “Is it me or is all porn the same nowadays?”

“What do you mean, ‘nowadays’?” Bill laughed, “You’re talking like you’re an old man!” Bill teased while Tom continued to scroll through Pornhub’s lesbian category, scrutinising the thumbnail for each video.

“They all look the _same_!” Tom frowned.

“No, they don’t. Look, that girl doesn’t have fake tits! And that one…oh God, is that _cake_ on her ass?” Bill wrinkled up his nose in disdain, “Gross. All those tits and pussies flying about, it’s like staring into the jaws of Hell.”

“How do you think I felt when I walked in on you a few months ago on your back, folded back like a lawn chair?”

“Hey, don’t you have a date tonight?”

“Yeah?”

“Trying to get the easy cum out of the way so you can last longer, huh? Yeah, I do the same.”

“Would you stop going on about me fucking her!”

Tom grimaced and shut Pornhub off their Smart TV, switching back to RTL which was showing one of those lame German soap operas with atrocious acting and absurd storylines.

“Why won’t you tell me anything about her?” Bill pouted.

“Her name is Emilia, ok?”

“And where are you taking this Emilia?”

“None of your business!”

It was late afternoon and both of them hadn’t long rolled out of bed. Over the past few years, they had both gotten into the habit of going to bed at around six in the morning and fall out of bed during mid-afternoon. Tom couldn’t remember the last time he had seen nine o’clock in the morning and his growing pot habit wasn’t helping, either. He had resolved many times to change his sleeping habits and quit smoking both cigarettes and joints. He could feel the effect of spending most of his time awake in artificial light and falling asleep with the aid of a spliff every night was having on him. He had smoked pot for years, he and Bill had smoked it regularly since they were fifteen, but he was now finding that he was relying on it to fall asleep at night. Over seven years, he had become accustomed to falling asleep with Ria’s lithe figure in his arms and he would still reach out for her in the middle of the night, his subconscious craving her warmth.

Not that there was any warmth between them anymore.

“My lawyer phoned yesterday. They’re evicting Ria from the house tomorrow,” Tom muttered as he stretched out, his feet up on the coffee table.

“Fuck, at last.”

“Mmm, at last.”

The two of them dozed on the sofa for the next few hours, drinking coffee and snacking on leftover pizza. While Bill skipped through the channels and finally settled on an all-day _Friends_ marathon, Tom played on his phone absentmindedly.

_Can’t I have a clue? Xx_

_Not a chance. I’ll meet you in the reception at like 9? Xx_

_Can’t wait! Xx_

“Is that Emilia?” Bill smirked as Tom looked up.

“How’d you know?”

“Because of that stupid grin on your face,” Bill smiled over at Tom fondly, “You really like her, huh?” Tom shrugged, “What, don’t you know?”

“I dunno,” And the truth was, he didn’t know. He spent a very long time thinking that he would never like a woman other than Ria for the rest of his life, “It’s difficult. She’s…different.” Tom rolled his eyes at himself at the lame choice of word and the questions it would inevitable invite.

“Different?”

“Yeah…I’m not sure whether I like her or not.”

“Well, have you jacked off over her?”

“What? No!”

“Have you got hard thinking about her?”

“No.”

“ _Really_?”

Tom shrugged again, avoiding Bill’s gaze.

“Wait, what is it?” Bill asked, confused.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Though he liked to think that he could talk to Bill about anything – and for the most part, he could – there were some things that he couldn’t bring himself to tell even Bill about. He had always been rather oversexed. Ever since he lost his virginity at fourteen, he had been all but obsessed with sex. When they had first been thrust into the spotlight and he suddenly found himself with girls throwing themselves at him, Tom was more than happy to take advantage. As a sixteen-year-old boy, he found it incredible that he could get any woman that he wanted in his bed. His sex drive was ridiculous, even for a teenager. So, he was relieved when he met Ria that she was just as amorous as he was. So much so that Bill had stopped being even mildly shocked when he would walk in on them fucking on top of the washing machine.

Being unable to get an erection was devastating.

It was soon time for Tom to leave and he grabbed his keys, cigarettes, and phone, shouting goodbye to Bill before he was straight out the door and into the elevator. When he got down to the reception, he saw Emilia straightaway. She was standing at the bar with a glass of white wine, playing on her phone but Tom hung back for a moment. His stomach was tight and he felt slightly nauseous. She was wearing a blue and white stripped bodysuit with a pair of light blue skinny denim jeans and since he could only see the back of her, he was able to see the exact shape of her shapely, round ass. He took a deep breath and approached her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey.”

“Oh, hi! I was a bit early so I got a drink, do you want something?”

“No, no, I’m good. You wanna sit for a bit?”

“Nope, let’s get going!” Emilia drank the last bit in her glass and turned towards Tom, “Are you still not going to tell me where we’re going?” Tom grinned and shook his head.

“C’mon, we’re going for a walk.”

As they walked, the grand lake soon came into view, glistening with the light of the late evening sun setting on the horizon. The wide sandy beach stretched out before them into the dark forest of trees and the two of them stood on the pavement for a moment, looking out onto the beauty of the view before them. The scorched sky glowed in the background, illuminating everything beneath it. As they stepped onto the sand, Emilia took Tom’s hand in hers, making him tense.

“Is…” He swallowed hard, “Is it like you thought it would be?” He tensed his jaw as he heard how lame he sounded but when he looked over to see her smiling as she looked out, he was put back at ease.

“It’s amazing.”

The beach was absolutely deserted which was a pleasant change from the crowds that descended upon it during the hot days and Tom was thankful for the cool, quiet February evening.

“Oh, I should have brought my puppy,” Emilia said wistfully as they strolled along the sand and Tom snapped his head over to her.

“You have a puppy? What kind? What colour is it? Is it a boy or a girl? And-” He was stopped and flashed a bashful grin as Emilia started laughing.

“God knows what he is, a _total_ mongrel. I reckon he’s got a bit of every breed in him. And he’s black with white patches. Looks a bit like a cow,” She smirked and Tom laughed “You like dogs, huh?”

“I _love_ dogs! Mine’s is L.A. with my mother right now.”

“You miss him?”

“Terribly.”

As they walked along the shore, Tom caught a glance at Emilia’s cleavage. Her nautical shirt was rather low cut with lace threaded through it to stop her tits from actual falling out and, as he stole the occasional glance, he became absolutely positive that he had never been on a date with anyone who was quite so voluptuous. He had always found it a crying shame that perfectly slim girls tended to have small breasts. Unless they were fake which Tom had never understood the appeal of. He thought fondly of a time when there would be a tent in his pants be catching a peek of a cleavage half as impressive as hers – it was part of the reason why he used to wear such baggy jeans.

He shook his head. _When_ did he start thinking like an old man?

“Are you alright? You’ve gone quiet,” Emilia murmured and Tom opened his mouth to speak his thoughts but quickly smacked it shut again. She did not need to hear about the lack of blood flow to his cock.

“Oh…sorry. I get lost in thought sometimes.”

“What are you thinking about?” Emilia asked and Tom was grateful for the darkening sky as his cheeks flamed.

“Nothing…ah, it’s silly.”

“No, go on. I’ll tell you what I’m thinking.”

“Go on then.”

“I was thinking about this absolute bitch who came in the store today. So snobby, you wouldn’t believe. She flounced in wearing sunglasses – in _February_ , for crying out loud! – and said she wanted an a line floral skirt. I told her that I was very sorry but I didn’t recognise the description and I asked if she saw it online because it might be an online exclusive piece. She said she hadn’t seen it anywhere, that’s just what she wanted. Fuck off you silly bitch,” Tom roared with laughter as Emilia rolled her eyes, shaking her head with a grin, “I love my job, really I do, but designers attract the worst people.”

“Oh, well thanks,” Tom muttered, feigning offence, making Emilia stop and turn to him.

“No I didn’t mean-”

“Don’t worry,” Tom grinned, bring up a hand to cup her cheek, “I’m not that sensitive.” He winked, grinning, taking her hand back in his.

“So, I told you mine so tell me yours.”

“Not fair, you had a funny story!”

“Oh c’mon. Tell me!” Emilia insisted and Tom relented.

“Ok, ok. I was thinking about the pizza I’m gonna order later, happy?” Tom teased, earning him an endeared laugh.

“Yeah, right. No, I think that you’re really quite a thoughtful person.”

“You do?” He frowned, confused.

“Yes, you’re a deep thinker. You always seem to be lost in thoughts you’re not too keen on sharing.” Tom had to laugh at that one.

“How do you know my thoughts are pure?” He teased, “No, if there’s one thing I am not, it’s deep. I’m pretty simple, for real.” Now it was Emilia’s turn to laugh.

“Are you being deliberately modest or do you really believe that?” She asked softly, looking over to him but he avoided her eye as he looked ahead with a shrug. He wasn’t trying to avoid the question, light hearted though it was meant. He genuinely didn’t know.

“Ok, so you’re going to think I’m lame but after I saw you the other day, I went and bought your last album. Uh… _Kings of Suburbia_?”

“You did?”

“Yeah, I really liked it!” She smiled, running a hand through her hair against the growing breeze. Tom felt his heart soar with pride as she spoke. It was the first work that he had produced by himself and he was immensely proud of _Kings_ – despite the less than stellar critical reception, “My favourite song was the titular track actually…it made me feel like I was _there_ with you guys, you know? In downtown Los Angeles, partying all night long,” She laughed softly, “Silly, right?”

“Are you kidding?” Tom said, shaking his head, “It’s our biggest goal to create an immersive atmosphere in our music, to transport people into the place and into the _feeling_. It means everything to know that we achieved that.” He slipped his hand out of Emilia’s and wrapped it lazily around her waist as they walked leisurely.

Tom wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the fact that Emilia’s favourite song from _Kings_ was a song he had written about the fucked-up night he proposed to Ria but he chose to push it to the back of his mind.

He had gotten rather good at that lately.

“I’ll have to get you a ticket to our concert in Berlin in April. It’ll be a good show.” He said softly as she lay her head on his shoulder.

“I’d like that.”

“You wanna sit?” They had come to a large cluster of rocks which offered a rather beautiful look out over the lake. It was dark now and as Emilia sat, Tom saw her shiver just for a moment so, naturally, he slipped off his leather jacket and hung it around her shoulders. With a smile that glowed over to him even in the dark light, she thanked him and he put an arm back around her waist as he sat beside her. The lake shone out, the brilliant full moon above it and the only sound one could hear was a boat out in the distance.

Tom watched fondly as the wind picked up just a little, washing through her hair, taking it off her delicate heart shaped face. Her wide eyes looked out on the mesmerising view, occasionally looking back at him, laughing bashfully as she saw that Tom wasn’t taking his eyes off her. He couldn’t. He was inexplicably drawn to her. She was a light, a warmth. He couldn’t help but appreciate the joy in her face as she relaxed beside him.

Tom hardly noticed his heart beating wildly in his chest like a virginal teenager as they inched closer. The romantic setting surrounding them fell apart. It wasn’t needed, it was irrelevant. In the short time he had known Emilia, he was positive that this was the longest she had gone without breaking a silence so any doubts that he had about her not wanting this as much as he apparently did started disappearing. He was self-conscious, he was awkward and he had the overwhelming urge to run.

He didn’t run.

He had his first kiss in nearly a year.


	5. Perfect

“Tom-”

“Hmm?” Tom kissed down the side of Emilia’s neck, his hand already weaved through her long, thick hair. They were in the backseat of his Audi and, with her beneath him, Tom’s head was swimming as he switched between her lips and soft skin.

“Let’s go inside,” She leaned up to kiss him and he responded enthusiastically before getting up and pulling her with him so they were both sitting up.

“You sure?” He asked, breathing heavily.

“Positive,” She giggled and pushed open the car door, jumping out and marching over to her apartment block with Tom not far behind. He followed her into the elevator and slung his arm around her leaning down to give her a chaste kiss. Tom’s stomach tightened. He wanted this. He wanted it bad. He hadn’t realised how bad until he had kissed her on the beach and she had pulled him close. But with all the building tension, it had failed to dawn on Tom why this was a terrible idea until they stepped into the elevator. Emilia led Tom out of the elevator and down the corridor to her apartment. Tom went along with her, entirely on automatic as he followed her to the kitchen where she grabbed a bottle of red wine.

“Drink?”

“Um…no. You want a joint?” Tom offered and Emilia shrugged, nodding with a smile as she put down the bottle.

“C’mon,” She took his hand back in hers and took him to the bedroom. She shut the door and Tom grinned, pushing her against the door, gripping her wide hips while he kissed her deeply. The tips of his fingers ghosted over her generous chest and undid the satin detailing of her shirt. With her breasts now positively bursting out of her shirt, there was no stopping the guttural moan escaping from his throat. They soon ended up on the bed and Tom shrugged off his jacket, throwing it on the floor and it was soon joined by his sweater.

He felt her hands start to skim down his body and he got up rather abruptly, sitting back on his knees while fishing his tin, which held a pre-rolled joint, out of his jeans pocket while she sighed, breathless. He looked down at her with a smirk.

“You look so fucking hot lying there like that.”

“Could say the same about you,” Emilia laughed warmly and it was then that he felt his thick, wavy hair skim around his shoulders, realising she had pulled the tie out.

“See? You must be special, I don’t let many people see my hair loose,” Tom was still smirking as he lit the joint and took a long drag while playing with the hem of Emilia’s shirt, feeling the warm, soft skin of her stomach on the pads of his fingers, “Come here,” Tom leaned back down over her while she sat up slightly on her elbows to take a drag from the joint that was still between his fingers.

Tom watched her with slight amusement as they shared the joint and soft kisses while Emilia became increasingly giggly and while he adored the relaxed and slightly dishevelled look that she was sporting, he was becoming rather frustrated.

It was the first time that he had been smoking pot around a woman he wanted to fuck and he wasn’t getting a raging boner.

Didn’t have to be a _raging_ boner. Just an indication of excitement would have given him some encouragement.

Alas, nothing.

“Tom? Are you ok?”

“Huh?”

“I asked you if you have a rubber.”

Tom fished one out of his pocket and tossed it onto the bedside table. With nerves coursing through his veins as if it was his first time, he inched up her shirt, groaning out loud.

They were _definitely_ the biggest tits he’d ever seen.

“You could’ve warned me you weren’t wearing a bra,” Tom murmured, kissing her impatiently.

“Disappointed?”

“Like fuck I am,” He laughed lowly, groaning into their kiss as he felt her naked chest against his own. He was so lost in the sensation that his reaction was completely delayed to the touch of Emilia unbuckling his belt, “Don’t,” he said softly, biting her bottom lip as they kissed.

“Tom…I want-” He cut her off with a pull on her tight nipples, “Fuck…Tom, just-” He cut her off again with a kiss, giving himself time to think. Tom agonised over whether he should take off her jeans. Of course, that was what she wanted but he knew that that would be the point of no return. He needed to cut it short, he needed to excuse himself and leave but he simply couldn’t. He didn’t want to.

Emilia took advantage of his wandering thoughts and pushed him back so that they switched roles and Tom felt his legs go numb and his mouth go dry as she started unbuckling his belt again.

“Em, I-I’m not-” Tom tensed completely as she took out his completely soft cock, screwing his eyes shut in embarrassment “Em, I-” He jolted as he felt her warm lips envelope him, “I don’t…” He trailed off as she reached up to stroke his stomach, reassuringly and though he was massively turned on by her enthusiasm, confidence, and her half naked body, after the longest five minutes of his life, he stroked her hair, guiding her head up.

“Tom-” Emilia could only get out his name before Tom had zipped himself up and jumped off the bed, yanking his sweater back over his head. He had never felt more utterly and completely humiliated in all his life. It had simply never happened to him before. In all of the one night stands that he had had as a horny teenager, not once had he been entirely unable to get it up. Not unless he had been absolutely, incredibly, completely off-his-face pissed. He had just opened the bedroom door when Emilia came up behind it and firmly shut it closed.

“Em, I don’t want to be a dick but I just want to go.”

“Don’t go. Come to bed with me.”

“Wasn’t it just made obvious to you that I _can’t_?” Tom cried out, entirely frustrated.

“Tom, it happens to every guy. It’s not a big deal, really,” She said, softly, taking his hand while he sighed deeply, “Come to bed,” She repeated as he turned to face her and she slipped his sweater back off, kissing his chest affectionately before crawling into bed, smiling warmly as he joined her.

Words couldn’t possibly even start to describe the shame Tom felt in that moment as he lay topless in Emilia’s bed. This was _exactly_ what he was terrified would happen.

“I promise you, Tom. It’s really not that big of a deal.”

“I’m sorry,” Tom whispered as Emilia wrapped herself around him, her head on his chest.

“Don’t be.”

Emilia leaned up to switch off the light and they spent a few moments lying together, wrapped around each other in silence before Tom felt a shift and she kissed him. He closed his eyes as tears stung the back of them and he was immensely glad she had shut off the lights but after a few seconds, he returned her kiss.

Eventually, Emilia fell asleep and though Tom closed his eyes and tried to drift off into a peaceful sleep, it soon become obvious that it wasn’t going to happen any time soon. So, he gently rolled her off his chest and slid out of bed. He left his sweater on the floor but picked up the half-finished joint from the ashtray and creeped out into the living area, taking a seat on the couch.

_Where are you? x_

_At Emilia’s. Staying here tonight x_

_Use protection x_

Tom rolled his eyes at Bill’s message. As if he needed reminding. _He_ wasn’t the one who had had chlamydia.

Tom lit the joint and sunk into the cheap fabric couch, sighing as he found himself able to relax. As he did so, it finally dawned on him that he’d just seen Emilia topless.

He giggled to himself.

And as he swung his legs up onto the couch and his eyelids grew heavy, he swore to himself as he realised his erection.

The next thing Tom remembered was Emilia shaking him awake and lying a blanket over him. Well, he only half remembered her telling him she was going to work and giving him a kiss before he fell straight back to sleep.

When he woke up properly several hours later, he took a few minutes to get his bearings before sitting up as the memory of the night before came flooding back. With his head still swimming with the embarrassment of the evening, Tom tied his hair back up, got dressed and rushed out. He messaged Georg as he ran down the stairs and drove straight to his house on the outskirts of Berlin.

He was greeted at the door by Georg’s partner, Meg.

“Oh, it’s you. What do you want?” She asked, entirely unimpressed to see Tom standing on her doorstep. He didn’t reply to her for a second, he was too preoccupied by her eyebrows. One of them hadn’t been drawn on, “Tom!”

“Oh, sorry. Uh, Georg is expecting me,” He said, sheepishly, feeling like a nine-year-old who was knocking the door for a friend.

“GEORG!” Meg yelled, making Tom wince, “I guess you’d better come in.” Georg appeared out of the kitchen with a sandwich in his hand.

“Bill’s not with you, is he?”

“No, why?” Tom asked, frowning, to Georg’s visible relief.

“Oh good. He’s been nagging me to go on a no carb diet.”

The two of them were ushered out into the back garden. The sky was grey and Tom was sure that it was going to start raining at any moment but Meg had forced them outside because she was apparently sick of Tom stinking up her prized home with his chain smoking. After a few minutes of unusually awkward small talk, Tom suddenly found himself telling Georg everything.

“Damn.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t even know you wrote that song about proposing to Ria.”

“ _Diamond sky_ ,” Tom said condescendingly.

“Oh well, _duh_. Excuse me, what an idiot I am. That’s so blatantly obvious.” Georg rolled his eyes, shaking his head.

“Fucking hell, G, that was literally just a side note with no relevance!” Tom cried out, irritably.

“Sorry. Look, Emilia was right, it’s not a big deal.”

“Yeah, well, I’m worried that she thinks it was because of her.”

“Don’t be stupid, why would she think that?”

“She’s…ah…she’s big,” Tom muttered awkwardly, scratching the back of his head.

“Big?”

“Yeah.”

“Big where? I haven’t seen her.”

“Alright, there’s no need to take the piss!”

“I’m not! I’m just saying that if she was that big in Germany or whatever, I would have heard of her!” Georg exclaimed and Tom peered at him for a moment, frowning, confused.

“What? No! No I didn’t mean she’s big as in she’s _famous_! I meant she’s big! As in, you know, she’s fat!”

“Oh. Well, it sounds like she was pretty nice about it. If she did think it was because of her, she probably would have been a dick about it. Have you told Bill about it?”

“I don’t really want to talk to him about her.”

Tom knew that Bill was a very image orientated person. To Bill, image was everything. He had a very particular image that he wanted to portray to the public and their fans and was very careful about what he put out on social media and what he said in interviews. It was part of the reason he hadn’t publicly come out as gay yet. Bill was terrified of losing and alienating his fans. Tom was convinced that the fear was irrational but when they were teenagers, just coming into the industry, their record label discovered that Bill was gay thanks to a picture of him making out with a guy in a nightclub that had been obtained by the German newspaper, _BILD_. The label paid over a hundred thousand Euros to suppress the photo and told Bill, in no uncertain terms, that he _could not_ come out as gay because it would be the end of his career. He would lose the adoration of all the infatuated girls. They had grown up since then, of course, but it was firmly fixed in Bill’s brain that coming out to the public was strictly out of the question.

So, Bill was very image orientated and liked to surround himself with beautiful, perfect things and beautiful, perfect people to maintain their image. He was very happy when Tom was with Ria. Ria was a stunning woman with a flawless figure and fit into the perfect Tokio Hotel narrative just right. Tom was so sick of having to be so perfect all the time. Perfect perfect perfect. It was nauseous always having to be fucking _perfect._

“You know what Bill’s like,” Tom muttered, sipping his beer.

“Yeah, true. He can be judgmental.”

“Can be? _Can be_? He _is_ judgmental. We both are.” Tom asserted while Georg raised an eyebrow in disagreement.

“You’re not.”

“Pfft. I am.”

“When are you ever judgmental? You’re like the least judgmental person I know.”

“Yeah, if you say so. Anyway, to be honest, this whole thing is just another point on my list of worries.”

“What do you mean?”

“The fucking tour, man. I could do without that shit right now. I love the shows but those fucking meet and greets!”

“Yeah, remind me why we do those again?”

“You tell me, G. Those girls paying hundreds of Euros to take photos with us and grope our asses. It’s fucking degrading standing there like pieces of meat. It’s _weird_.”

“Lucrative though.” Georg pointed out, taking a long drag of his cigarette.

“Sure. I just wonder if it’s worth it. It’s just not something I wanna do right now,” Tom shrugged, swallowing hard.

“How’s it going with the whole Ria thing?” Georg asked, a considerate note in his voice. Tom tensed. He’d said too much.

“Alright. She was evicted the other day.”

“Where did she go?”

“Dunno. Don’t care.” They both knew that was a lie.

“Georg!” The two of them turned around at the sound of Meg, Georg’s partner, yelling from the kitchen window.

“Is she alright or what?” Tom laughed as she hung out of the window waving frantically.

“Georg! Get in here!” She yelled and Georg reluctantly stood up, kicking back his chair.

“It’s probably the right…time, y’know.”

“Eh? Right time for what?” Tom asked, confused.

“You know, she’s probably at the right _temperature_ ,” Georg alluded, gesturing to his stomach while Tom just shook his head, completely perplexed, “To have sex, Tom.”

“Oh! Oh right, well, you go then. You won’t be very long, will you.” Tom grinned as Georg jogged back into the house. The two of them had been trying to get pregnant for around a year now, to no avail. Tom didn’t personally see the appeal in having a child. Even when he was with and happily married to Ria, it didn’t even cross his mind to start a family but he still felt awful for Georg all the same.

“False alarm,” Georg sighed as he sat down, “Just a phone call.”

“Unlucky!”

“Fuck no,” Georg laughed, “our consultant has us on this schedule based on her cycle and it’s really taking it out of me to be honest. The tour will be a welcome break.”

“Fuck off, you can’t be doing it that much!”

“It’s only once tonight. On Tuesday it was three times, Wednesday, two and Friday, three. I really hope she gets pregnant this month, I _really_ can’t do this for very much longer. I’m exhausted!” They laughed together, cracking open the cans that Georg had brought out, “Yeah but, seriously though. I haven’t said to her, I don’t want to get her hopes up but…” he grinned, “I think we’ve done it.”

“You think she’s pregnant?” Tom asked, his eyebrows raised in surprise.

“She’s gained a little weight and her boobs are bigger.”

“Oh…really?” Tom asked, doubtfully.

“I know, I know. When I say it like that, it sounds stupid. I can’t explain it. I’m just convinced she is but we’ll have to wait. She wants to wait until just before we leave for the tour to take the next test.”

“I hope she is, G. But…y’know. If she’s not…don’t worry. It’ll happen.”

“I hope so, Tom. I really do.”


	6. Married

“Can I crash here tonight?” Georg asked as they packed up their equipment, having just finished a rehearsal. The album was being released at the end of the week and the tour just a few days later so every second they could spend practising counted.

“What, like a slumber party? Quick Tom, get our onesies out of the cupboard, order a pizza and get _Mean Girls_ on DVD!” Bill clapped his hands, beaming widely.

“Is he taking the piss?” Georg asked but Gustav could only shrug.

“Who knows?” Gustav shrugged, “Why aren’t you going home?”

“Meg’s pissed off with me because I came while she was giving me a blowjob last night,” Georg muttered, cuing roars of laughter.

“You didn’t?” Gustav wheezed out between laughs.

“It’s not funny! She yelled at me for nearly an hour, saying that I might have wasted my one good sperm!” His words didn’t help matters, the laughs only got louder and Tom felt himself tearing up, “Stop laughing! She spat my cum out on my chest!” But the laughs boomed even more intensely to Georg’s frustration, “Oh, fuck yourselves!”

“Are _you_ going to grace us with your presence tonight?” Bill asked Tom, raising his eyebrows pointedly, earning himself an equally pointed eyeroll as the laughs died off, sensing the tension.

“No. I’m going out. You got a problem with that?” Tom bit out as he shut down the laptops, grabbed his phone and went to skulk out of the studio when Bill’s voice stopped him.

“I’m surprised that you get out of that girl’s place alive,” Bill smirked, making Tom turn on his heel to face his brother.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Doesn’t she suffocate you when she sits on your face?” Bill laughed as Tom gritted his teeth, glaring at Georg.

“No more than when Alex shoves his cock down your throat.”

Tom slammed the door on his way out.

He ran therapeutically down the few flights of stairs, only to be met in reception by Georg and Gustav.

“What are you, a double act?” Tom snarled sarcastically.

“A lot of people would say we were, yeah,” Gustav muttered, earning himself an eyeroll from Tom and an elbow in the ribs from Georg, “anyway-”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Georg interrupted, “are you going to Emilia’s place?”

“Yeah,” Tom answered, pushing past the two of them, making for the exit.

“Tom, for fuck sake!” Gustav grabbed Tom’s arm, stopping him in his tracks, “The album is being released in less than a week and we go on tour soon.”

“And we are not spending two months on the road with you two when you’re _both_ in a famous Kaulitz sulk.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to take two babies on tour when I’ve got one at home already!”

“You two really _are_ a double act, aren’t you? Look, I gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Tom pushed the two of them aside more firmly this time and headed out to his car, quickly jumping in, and pulling out onto the road. He drove along the unusually quiet main road, thinking about what Georg and Gustav had said. They were right, of course. Every day of the tour that they had a gig – which, obviously, was most of them – was going to involve at least twelve hours of working together. Not to mention sharing a tour bus and a hotel room for the rest of the time. He was literally going to spend every minute of every day with Bill. So as much as Tom knew that he had to clear the air of all the unresolved tension that had been building recently, he couldn’t quite bring himself to a place where he wanted to do so. He and Bill were drifting apart. They used to share everything. Still did, to a large extent. But it was harder now.

Tom decided to take a short detour when he saw a sign for a nearby _Aldi_ and turned into a backstreet on the outskirts of Mitte, following the signs until he saw the supermarket at the end of the street. He stopped at a set of traffic lights just before the store and sat back for a moment, yawning when a tall woman emerging with a carrier bag full of groceries caught his eye.

“What the fuck…” He trailed off as he watched Ria unwrap a new pack of cigarettes and light one up as she slid into her car. She pulled out onto the road in front of Tom just as the traffic lights finally turned and, suddenly, he forgot all about his plans to pick up a couple of bottles of wine and followed Ria’s car. Tom’s head was foggy and he wasn’t thinking clearly as he followed Ria’s car out of Mitte and to Charlottenburg.

“Why did you come all the way to Mitte just to get some groceries, you dumb bitch?” Tom muttered, gripping the steering wheel tighter by the second.

Eventually, Ria pulled into the private car park of an apartment block on the outskirts of Charlottenburg and as she flashed her entry card to go in, Tom pulled up on the pavement and swore loudly to himself, smacking the wheel in frustration.

Tom knew that Ria had only been evicted from his house in L.A. a few days earlier so he frowned, uncomfortable at the thought that she had already come to Berlin and found herself a private apartment. Was it really her place? He couldn’t imagine that she would have been able to find such a place so quickly. She didn’t have any siblings and all their friends were mutual and Tom didn’t know of any of their friends who lived in that apartment block. So that left one solution in his mind.

Ria was living there with a guy.

Tom gritted his teeth as the thought swirled around in his head and he seethed with anger.

He sat stationary in his car as he stared angrily up at the apartment block, wondering who the guy could be.

The day Tom had come back from lunch out with friends to find all of Ria’s things had gone was the worst of his adult life. Her clothes in their wardrobe, her makeup in their bathroom, even her photo on his bedside table were all gone. Before he had found her note on his pillow, he had been sure that she was playing some kind of ridiculous practical joke on him. He had hoped the note would give him some kind of explanation – that surely couldn’t be too much to ask from his own wife – but she gave nothing. No reason. Not even an apology. She just said that she was moving in with a friend and that their marriage was over. Tom couldn’t remember how many angry, then upset, then pleading and then just plain heartbroken voicemails he had left her. All to no answer.

Despite that, the selfish bitch moved herself right back into his house as soon as they had moved to Berlin ready for the release of _Dream Machine._

He grabbed his phone and started dialling.

_“Hel-”_

“Did you know that Ria was in town?”

_“What?”_

“Don’t give me that, G. I know Franz still talks to her. Did you know?”

_“No! I didn’t have a clue! How do you-”_

Tom hung up the phone in frustration and threw it onto the backseat, pulling off and speeding across the city to Emilia’s apartment. The promise that he had made her that morning to bring some takeout along with a few bottles had gone completely out of his head. All he could think of was Ria riding the cock of some muscular alpha male.

Tom grimaced. He could practically hear her moans.

Tom’s phone started ringing. He ignored it and it soon stopped. But then it started again.

“Fuck sake,” Tom cried out in frustration as he leaned back to grab his phone.

“What?”

_“Can you come home?”_

“What? No! Why?”

_“My mask for the start of the show has broken.”_

“Why can’t you sort that out?”

_“I don’t-”_

“For fuck sake, Bill! I can’t do everything for you!”

_“But-”_

“It’s just a fucking mask! Sort it out yourself!” Tom shouted down the phone, discarding it into the passenger seat beside him.

Finally, he arrived in Spandau, at Emilia’s apartment block. He headed up in the elevator and knocked hard on her front door. She threw open the door and beamed.

“Hey-” Emilia was cut off as Tom grabbed her hips and kissed her hard, walking her backwards while he slammed the door shut with his foot, “Tom…” She giggled as she wrapped her arms around his back and they stumbled into the kitchen and he backed her up against the counter. He gripped her hips harder, “No, you won’t-”

“Shh.” Tom picked her up easily and sat her on the counter, grabbing her thighs to wrap them around his waist. Still kissing her, he yanked down her vest and bra and smirked as she again pulled out his tie and ran her fingers through his thick hair, holding him close as he sucked a tight nipple between his lips.

“Tom…” Emilia moaned softly as he inched up her skirt, revealing her thick thighs inch by inch and soon the tips of his fingers were stroking over the lace of her panties. He leaned back up to kiss her hard, feeling her gasp as he pulled her panties aside and slipped a finger inside her, slowly and deliberately. Tom let her pull her his shirt as he eased another finger inside her, feeling her moan into their kiss, “Fuck…Tom…just-” Emilia cut herself off, crying out as Tom ran his thumb over her swollen clit, smirking and kissing her neck as he watched her reaction.

“So fucking hot. Fuck…Turn around. Bend over,” Tom murmured as they kissed, his breath short. He broke away only to let her hop off the counter and bend over like he told her to. He couldn’t resist smacking her ass before dropping to his knees, pushing her skirt over her ass, “Fuck. Someone’s wet, huh?” He chuckled lowly as he peeled off her panties, only bothering to push them to her knees before he spread her ass wide and leaned in to drag his tongue painfully slowly up her slit.

“Oh… _Tom_!” The moan of his name made Tom grab her thighs and start to lap at her sweet pussy feverishly, tasting every part of her. He slipped two fingers back inside her, fucking her with them harder now as he sucked on her clit, groaning as he felt her legs shake and her moans only getting louder.

“C’mon…cum for me…” He murmured against her pussy, slipping a third finger inside her and he smirked triumphantly to himself as he heard the desperate tone in her moans.

“Tom! Tom…just-” With his lips wrapped around her clit, he smacked her ass hard, all but growling as she came into his mouth. He lapped at her sweet juices through her orgasm, sinking his fingers into her deliciously thick thighs, holding her firmly in place as she shook, moaned, groaned, and cried out. He couldn’t – and didn’t want to – resist smacking her ass one last time before standing up and taking her in his arms.

“So fucking sexy,” Tom grinned, holding a shaking Emilia in his arms as she came down off her high. He kissed her gently, lightly as he subtly redressed her, fixing her bra and shirt, and breaking their kiss just for a moment to pull her panties up and her skirt down. She clung to him, utterly breathless and allowed him to guide her over to the couch where she all but collapsed.

“What the hell was that?” She laughed, still out of breath as he kissed her.

“Didn’t you like it?” He teased as they lay together on the sofa.

“Of course I did,” She leaned up for a kiss, “Just wondering why I didn’t get a ‘hello’ before you started going to town,” Emilia laughed while Tom scooted himself down on the sofa, his long legs dangling over the edge as he nestled himself in her heavy cleavage, “You’re ok, aren’t you?” She asked while he shrugged like a petulant child, “Tom?” She stroked the top of his head, smoothing down his unruly hair comfortingly.

“Can we just…not. It's been a long day.” They lay together in silence for a minute, Emilia playing with Tom’s long hair. He hadn’t really paid attention to her apartment the last time he was there and as they lay together, he looked around. The living room was small and cluttered; the precise opposite to his own. He would have loved the bright flowers she had in his apartment but Bill’s fussy allergies forbade such things. While his own place was slick and stylish, she had a beautifully organised chaos. At first glance it appeared as though all the cushions, rugs and furniture were entirely mismatched but they had clearly all been carefully picked out to match each other just right in complementing shades of cream, grey and dusky pink. It wasn’t Tom’s style at all; he was like Bill, he liked a sleek, minimalist style. But this was rather comforting. The softness of it made him feel at ease; like it was a home rather than simply a place to stay.

Their solitude was interrupted by a loud yawn which made Tom jump slightly.

“Oh, hold on,” Emilia jumped up and went over to her bedroom door where a pudgy little white and ginger puppy stood with his tongue hanging out. Tom sat up and watched as Emilia scooped him up and brought up over to the couch, “This,” she placed him in Tom’s arms, “is Alfie.” Tom cradled Alfie is his arms, scratching behind his ear making him yawn and settle in Tom’s lap.

“He’s gorgeous,” Tom grinned, stroking the puppy’s back fondly, “I miss mine horribly.”

“He likes you,” Emilia stroked Alfie’s little paw, “he doesn’t often settle on a new person’s lap.”

“I need to tell you something. You might already know,” Tom murmured, avoiding looking up as he concentrated on the warm lump half asleep in his lap.

“What is it?”

“I’m…” He trailed off with a sigh, “I’m sorry, I should have told you earlier,” He felt her shift on the sofa, “I’m married.”

“You’re what?”

“We’re separated. In the middle of a divorce.” Tom ran a hand through his hair, sighing with frustration, “I should have told you, I’m so sorry. I just really like you and I felt like we had a connection and I thought you might freak if I told you. But we are, we’re getting a divorce – I filed for it actually but I just-” Tom was cut off by Emilia’s hand being pressed over his mouth.

“It’s ok,” She said softly but as she dropped her hand, Tom handed Alfie to her gently – in direct contrast to how he was feeling.

“How can you say that? How can you say it’s _ok_? I lied to you! I didn’t tell you I was married and you say that it’s ok? How can you be so _nice_? Why aren’t you pissed off?” Tom held his head in his hands, the sheer frustration coursing through him.

“What do you want from me, Tom? You want me to be angry about something that has nothing to do with me? You just told me that you’re getting a divorce so it’s not like you’ve just had an argument and messing with me on the side, is it?” Her words stung. He didn’t mind people being annoyed at him for things he had done but he couldn’t stand it when people were annoyed at him for the way he felt.

“I’m sorry,” Tom muttered.

“You don’t have to be sorry, you’ve told me now,” Emilia smoothed his hair and kissed the side of his head, “Has something happened with that? Is that why you’re upset?”

“No…the album release and the tour is getting stressful and me and Bill aren’t exactly tight right now. Sorry, I shouldn’t have just barged my way in here and…y’know.”

“Hey, now, I wasn’t exactly complaining,” Emilia laughed, apparently waking up Alfie, who tried to jump, but ended up falling onto the floor, panting as he rolled onto his back to scratch himself on the carpet.

“I, ah, I forgot to bring food.”

“No problem, we’ll order some takeout. What do you want?”

“Whatever you want is cool. I just don’t eat meat.”

“That’s fine, me neither,” Emilia took out her phone and Tom just peered at her, wondering why he had been granted the fortune to meet her. Fuck Bill, fuck Ria and fuck his image. He needed this right now, “Ok, beetroot and halloumi burgers, fries, brownies and beer. Good?”

“You have to ask?”

While Emilia ordered the food on her phone, Tom got down on the floor and scratched Alfie’s tummy, laughing as the puppy looked up at him with wide eyes, panting happily at the attention.

“You’re spoiling him,” she laughed, “he’ll be expecting that sort of love all the time now.” Tom turned to give her a chaste kiss.

“So. Come on. I told you something about me, it’s your turn.” Tom watched as Emilia laughed.

“Oh, that’s how it is, is it?” Alfie crawled into Emilia’s lap and she pet him lovingly, “Ok,” she coughed awkwardly, “my parents died when I was sixteen.” Tom blinked, stunned at her revelation, and instinctively put an arm around her shoulders, inching closer to her.

“Fuck…I’m sorry.” He could hear how lame he sounded.

“It was a car crash. They had gone out to dinner – it was their wedding anniversary. I was babysitting my little sister and I’d just put her to bed when there was a knock at the door…” Emilia trailed off with a shrug as Alfie looked up at them both with wide eyes. Even he could sense the drop in the atmosphere.

“Babe-”

“It’s alright. It was a long time ago. Nearly ten years now.”

“Damn, how can you be so calm about that?” Tom murmured while she shrugged.

“It’s just life, isn’t it? You just have to get on with it, you know? Shit happens.”

“Yeah,” Tom nodded thoughtfully, “yeah, shit happens.” As Emilia turned towards him, Tom took the opportunity to hold her close and offer her a quietly reassuring kiss. He held her tight, wanting her to feel his affection, his warmth that he seemed only to have for her.  It had been so long since he had wanted to give anyone affection and he hadn’t realised how much he yearned to do so.

The persistent vibrating of Tom’s phone interrupted their calm kiss.

“Sorry.” He broke the kiss and pulled out his phone, seeing Bill’s name flash up on it. Reluctantly, he stood up and answered.

“What?”

_“Ria’s in town!”_

“Yeah, I know.”

 _“Why didn’t you tell me?”_ Bill cried out while Tom rolled his eyes impatiently.

“I only found out like an hour or two ago.”

_“How did you know?”_

“How did _you_ know?”

_“She’s in contact with Meg. Georg phoned me just now.”_

“Right. Well. I’m kinda busy, so if there’s nothing else-”

_“Why are you acting like this isn’t a big deal?”_

“Because it isn’t a big deal,” Tom muttered with gritted teeth, wishing his twin would shut up and end the conversation.

_“Not a big deal?”_

“No. All it means is that we’ve got our house back. Now, was there anything else?”

_“But-”_

“Was there?”

_“Well, no, but-”_

“Bye.” With a sigh, Tom hung up and slipped his phone back in his pocket, looking back over at Emilia to see her staring up at him, Alfie in her lap.

“Everything ok?”

“Oh, yeah.” Tom forced a smile, sitting back on the floor beside her.

“What was that about your house?”

“Oh…my mother and her husband have been staying there and they’ve just moved out.” After telling Emilia about Ria and their divorce, Tom wasn’t entirely sure why he lied. Well, no, he did know.

There didn’t been to be another person brought into Ria’s tangled web.


	7. Long Day

_@tokiohotel I loooooooove #DreamMachine can’t WAIT for the tour now!!!_

_@tokiohotel OMG #dreammachine is your BEST album! I_ _❤ #boydontcry_

_@tokiohotel you guys NEED to release #easy so beautiful omgggggg_

The reaction to the release of _Dream Machine_ had been incredible. Tom wasn’t usually one to scroll through Twitter but he simply couldn’t resist. The album had only been released that day but Tom had been itching all day to see what the fans had been saying about it. They had been doing promotion all day, including three magazine interviews, two television interviews, a radio interview, and a photoshoot so it was only at 1 am, while he lay in bed, did he have the chance to finally look. And, thank the heavens, the reaction had been overwhelmingly positive. The critical reception hadn’t been fantastic but Tom didn’t really care about that. They had made the album for the fans, not for the critics and critics weren’t the ones who bought their records and concert tickets.

The only thing that had given Tom food for thought was that the favourite song appeared to be _Easy_. He hadn’t anticipated that. Other than the singles, he had thought _Cotton Candy Sky_ would be the one everyone loved. Tom had thought that some of the comments about _Boy Don’t Cry_ were hilarious; people seemed to think the ‘girl’ in the song was a friend or a love interest. No one had seemed to twig yet that the ‘girl’ was just a metaphor for cocaine.

His phone vibrated.

“Hey, sexy.” Tom grinned stupidly to himself.

_“I love it! I just got home from work and I bought and I listened and I love it!”_

“Seriously? You bought it? I could have just given you a copy.” He laughed, shuffling awkwardly, feeling oddly flattered.

_“Don’t be silly, as if I could wait! It’s so dreamy.”_

“Listen to it stoned.”

 _“Yes!”_ She laughed, to Tom’s delight; he loved that sound, _“My favourite is_ Cotton Candy Sky.”

“Mmm, mine too. Me and Bill wrote it together…it’s about us,” Tom couldn’t stop the yawn as he spoke.

_“Long day?”_

“That’s an understatement,” Tom laughed, “I can barely keep my eyes open.”

_“You should get some sleep.”_

“I’d rather talk to you,” Tom smiled affectionately, “I’ve missed you,” He murmured softly.

_“Have you?”_

“Of course,” Tom fiddled with the hem of his shirt awkwardly for a moment, “Haven’t you missed me?”

_“I have, actually. Thought about you for most of last night.”_

“Mmm yeah?” Tom grinned, “Go on.”

_“Well, I’ve thought about you for the last four nights…”_

“Tell me.”

_“I thought of you…touching me, kissing me-”_

“Kissing you where?” Tom couldn’t hide the smirk on his face.

 _“I can’t stop thinking of when you just came in here and bent me over…”_ She trailed off with a moan, making Tom roll his eyes back and lean over to grab a half finished joint from the night before.

“Next time I do that, I’m gonna fuck you. You know that, don’t you?” Tom lit up his joint, taking a long, blissful drag.

_“Mmm, is that a promise?”_

“Absolutely.”

As they talked and Tom smoked, he found himself getting braver with his words.

“What are you wearing?” He murmured, making Emilia laugh, “What?”

 _“You sound like a creepy old man,”_ She giggled.

“A sexy creepy old man?”

_“Obviously. I’m just wearing a t-shirt and panties.”_

“You’re still wearing panties? I’m insulted.”

_“You want me to take them off?”_

“Stupid question,” Tom groaned as he heard her giggle and take off her panties, “Are you-”

“Tom!” Tom was cut off by the yelling of his name from the hallway, “Tom!”

“Hold on babe, can I call you back?” He hung up the phone and rushed out of his bedroom to find Bill welcoming Georg and Gustav into their apartment, “What?” Georg held up a bottle of Champagne while Tom stared at them both quizzically. Clearly, Bill either already knew, or guessed what was going on, judging by the excitement that was vibrating out of him. He could hardly stay still.

“Drink?” Georg beamed at them and they all looked at him with a ‘duh’ look on their faces.

“What’s going on?” Tom and Gustav asked simultaneously as they followed Georg into the kitchen and he grabbed three Champagne glasses from the cupboard.

“Are we celebrating the album release? Because judging from the hangover I had this morning, I’m pretty sure I did that last night.”

“No, last night you celebrated because you found out your cock is half a centimetre bigger than you thought it was.”

“ _No_ , I found out it was a whole centimetre bigger than I thought it was!” Bill insisted.

“Guys, I have a kid at home and have been dragged here against my will so would you mind telling me why I was stopped from having my daily two-hour sleep?” The three guys looked at Georg expectantly, eyebrows raised in anticipation. Though they all knew what was coming. Except Tom. He was trying to focus on keeping his eyes open.

“Well, Gus, soon I’ll be feeling your pain.”

“No!”

“Meg’s pregnant!”

“Shit!”

“No!”

“ _Yes_!”

“Fuck!”

Like a group of excited teenage schoolgirls, every one of them screamed, taking turns to hug Georg tightly. Soon Georg opened the Champagne and started knocking it back.

“I would like to propose a toast,” Bill announced, holding up his glass, “to Georg’s one good sperm finally getting through!” It earnt him a smack on the back of his head.

They soon finished the bottle of Champagne so Bill grabbed his best bottle of whisky from the back of the cupboard and the four of them took it out to the balcony. They settled on the stone floor and each quickly drank their first glass.

“When did you find out?”

“She called me, screaming when I was driving home! I nearly fucking crashed but it was so fucking worth it.” As Georg spoke, Tom couldn’t help but peer at him, fascinated. He had known Georg for over fifteen years and had shared his best and worst moments but had never seen him as deliriously happy as he was right in that moment.

“And then you had incredible sex, right?” Gustav snickered while Georg raised an eyebrow.

“How did you know that?”

“It’s what we did when we found out we were pregnant,” Gustav shrugged, “And, trust me, the sex will get even better.”

“Really?” Georg asked, wide eyed as Gustav nodded knowingly, “Damn.”

“Isn’t she pissed that you came out here to get drunk with your friends? I mean, she’s crazy at the best of times,” Bill chuckled.

“Are you kidding? She kicked me out of bed and made me come over here because she wanted all her friends to come over,” They snapped their heads to the side as they heard a long, loud snore, “Wow, talk about a rock star life, right?” Georg smirked as Gustav lolled back with his mouth wide open.

“That’ll be you in a few months’ time,” Tom smirked, finishing off his second glass.

“Have you two made up then?” Georg asked, making the twins look up, looking each other in the eye.

“Dunno, have we?” Bill shrugged.

“That depends on whether you’re in contact with Alex and if you’re ever going to make a fat joke about Emilia again,” Tom said pointedly, gritting his teeth as Bill rolled his eyes.

“ _No_ , I haven’t been in contact with Alex. And what’s the big deal about Emilia? She’s fat and it was a funny joke!”

“You haven’t even met her!”

“So? You told me she was fat!”

“No, I told G and _he_ told you!”

“Who cares? Either way, you said she was fat so I made a joke about it. What’s the big deal?”

“Oh, ok, so it’s alright for you to joke about her being fat but it’s not ok for anyone to joke about you being gay?”

“That is so not the same thing!” Bill cried out, “There’s a reason homophobia is illegal and fatophobia isn’t!”

“Ok, ‘fatophobia’ isn’t a thing and ok, fine, how about I tell you that you dress like an absolute twat, you’re a skinny motherfucker with zero muscle tone and you’re a conceited, arrogant cunt with no discernible talent who only has a place in this fucking band because I refuse to sing?” As Tom stared him dead in the eye, Bill could only stare back, his jaw dropped open.

“No discernible talent?” Bill repeated, aghast while Tom stood up.

“There’s a reason I auto tune the fuck out of your voice,” Tom turned to Georg, “Congratulations, G. I’m really happy for you.”

Seething with anger that he knew was at least somewhat irrational, Tom grabbed his phone and made his way out, dialling Emilia as he went.

“Do you have any pot?”

_“Yeah, why?”_

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Tom jumped in his car and sped off across the city towards Spandau and Emilia’s apartment. With every minute that went by, he felt worse and worse. He shouldn’t have gotten so angry about something so stupid. He shouldn’t have said such hurtful things to Bill. He shouldn’t have ruined what was such a happy day for Georg.

His phone vibrated with a text from Georg.

_That was uncalled for. Tonight wasn’t about you._

He grunted, punching the steering wheel in frustration. As he stopped at a set of traffic lights, Tom had to blink furiously to stop the tears from rolling down his cheeks. He gripped the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles turned white.

He just couldn’t stand when anyone, even – maybe even especially – Bill criticised him or anything related to him. On a certain level, Tom felt like Bill should feel indebted to him and, as such, should never criticise him. Bill had always leant on him for everything, starting with their parents’ divorce when they were only seven years old. While their parents screamed at each other, Tom was always the one to hug Bill. It was never the other way around even though Tom was desperate for someone, _anyone_ to hug him and tell him everything would be ok. Nowadays, Tom was just frustrated. How dare Bill criticise him, criticise his choice in women, when he did _everything_ for him?

Criticism, criticism, criticism. Tom was positively sick of it.

When Tom parked outside Emilia’s block, he took a moment to compose himself before reluctantly sloping out of his car. He ran up to her flat and knocked on the door, feeling a slight weight fall off his shoulders when she cracked open the door to let him in. Rubbing his face exasperated, he headed into her living room and fell on her sofa, his eyes closed.

“Tom? It’s three in the morning and I have work in six hours.” He opened his eyes reluctantly at the annoyed tone in her voice and held out his hand for her to take, pulling on her hand.

“I don’t think-”

“How weak do you think I am? Come sit on my lap,” Tom pulled her down, registering for the first time that she had a lit joint in her hand, “Can I?” She put it to his lips and he took a long drag, groaning therapeutically, “I’m sorry for just coming over so late…don’t be pissed,” he whispered, brushing aside her long hair to kiss her neck lazily.

“I’m not pissed,” Emilia murmured, taking a drag, “you’re just lucky I had a nap this afternoon.”

“I was just a fucking dick with the guys. I had to get away.”

“What happened?”

“I ruined Georg’s night…his girlfriend is pregnant. They’ve been trying for over a year so we were celebrating and I just fucking ruined it by being a fucking cock.” Tom took another drag, sinking back into the deep, soft couch cushions, taking her back with him so they were lying together, his arms around her waist.

“I can’t imagine you were a fucking cock,” She said softly as she kissed his cheek, his beard scratching her as he scoffed.

“You weren’t there. Bill said something mildly stupid and I just…” He trailed off, groaning as he remembered what he said, “I completely ripped into him, created a scene and stormed out. Totally killed G’s vibe.”

“I’m sure what you said wasn’t _that_ bad,” Emilia murmured, stroking Tom’s hair soothingly.

“Oh, it was. I basically told him that he couldn’t sing. And that he’s a cunt.”

“Well that’s not…” She trailed off, “No, that’s pretty fucking bad.”

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, “I seem to only come here when I’ve got a problem.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that. There’s worse things than having a sexy guy turn up at your place in the middle of the night to talk about his problems into your boobs.” Emilia laughed as she finally got a smile out of Tom and he licked over the swell of her breast, teasingly.

“I just dunno what to do. Something has to change, we can’t live like this anymore. It was easier before, when we both were in relationships. But he’s just always… _there_. Always needing to know where I am and what I’m doing. It’s like being a kid again.” Tom’s eyes were getting heavy now and he wasn’t sure if he was articulating his words properly but he didn’t particularly care.

“Have you thought about moving out?”

“What?”

“Moving out.”

“Nah, that’ll just make things worse. Moving is so stressful and Bill is so fussy about where he lives and-”

“ _No_. No, I mean, have you thought about moving out? Just you. You getting your own place.”

“Get my own place? What, without Bill?” Tom frowned, an eyebrow raised.

“Yeah. Having your own space might do you some good.”

Tom blinked, mildly bewildered. The very idea of living on his own, without Bill, was so completely and entirely alien to him. It had never even crossed his mind to not live with Bill. Bill was his twin, his best friend, his _soulmate_. How could he not wake up and have their early morning (actually: 3pm) cigarette together? How could he not wake Bill up at 8am to show him a video of a cat falling down the stairs? How could he not attempt to make a healthy evening meal with Bill before burning a lettuce and phoning for takeout? Or, more precisely, how could he possibly live without Bill’s presence, without Bill’s aura, around him? He had never lived without Bill, ever. Even when he was married, Ria simply lived with Tom and Bill. Even when Alex proposed to Bill, he simply moved in. There had never, at any time, been any suggestion from anyone that Tom or Bill should move out and get their own place.

“I dunno, it was just a thought,” Emilia shrugged and Tom was sure she was mistaking the fact that he was deep in thought for him being completely glazed over.

“No. Maybe you’re right.”


	8. KFC

To say there was tension was a gross understatement. As they sat together in an interview for some online channel, the atmosphere was thick. Not between Tom and Georg; Tom had made sure that he had phoned Georg that morning to offer his sincerest apologies, which Georg had happily accepted since he was still very much floating on air. Tom had picked Georg up and given him a ride to the hotel where they met the channel and it had been clear that all was forgotten when he slid into Tom’s car. No, the tension came between the twins. When they had met in the reception of the hotel, Tom had tried to speak to Bill. He had wanted to embrace his brother, tell him that he was sorry and that he didn’t mean the shit that he had said. But Bill had turned his back on him, completely ignored him and refused to say a single word to him. It was like a punch to his stomach.

He physically could not stand it when Bill was pissed off with him for an extended period. Despite Tom often being frustrated and pissed off with Bill himself, he found himself feeling rather lost when Bill turned away from him. He craved his brother’s love and attention but when that love and attention was taken away, Tom became overwhelmed with anxiety.

Tom worried about how the tension would affect their interview. The chemistry and banter that they had drove their interviews and was a pivotal reason many people were so eager to chat with them; which, of course, was invaluable in terms of advertising. He needn’t have worried, though. As soon as the four of them sat on the hotel room sofa and he was forced to sit beside Bill, it was as if nothing had happened. Bill took the lead, of course, and being the expert he was, he kept turning to Tom to relay anecdotes as he spoke about how they worked closely on the making of the new album and it how it worked ‘so well’ because they were ‘two halves of the same person’.

God, Tom was so sick of that line.

The interview thankfully didn’t last too long and soon the web channel were ushered out. They had another appointment with teen magazine _Bravo_ in the same hotel room but they agreed to have a quick smoke break first. As Bill and Gustav stepped out onto the wide balcony, Tom lingered back.

“I can’t believe that I have to tell you this but go out there. He’s not going to bite your head off.”

“Don’t you remember what I said to him?”

“He knows that you didn’t mean it.”

“Did he say that?” Tom looked at Georg, hopeful.

“Well…no but he _did_ say that you were talking a load of bollocks. Which I see as the same thing.”

Reluctantly, Tom allowed himself to be dragged out onto the balcony where Gustav was smoking but Bill was just standing, leaning against the railings. Tom couldn’t remember ever feeling so awkward around his brother as he walked over and held out his packet of _Marlboro_ cigarettes. Without either of them saying a word, Bill took out a cigarette, put it between his lips and let Tom lean over to light it for him. But still, they didn’t speak. The four of them had a cigarette in silence while checking their phones.

_Are you ok? You didn’t get much sleep last night x_

_I’m a rock star, used to no sleep_ _xx_

Tom really hadn’t gotten any sleep. Even though they both got completely stoned and Emilia fell right to sleep when they had fallen (literally) into bed, Tom had lain awake, playing on his phone, and tossing and turning. Emilia had roused after a couple of hours and drawn him into a hug. But even lying his head between the comfiest pair of tits that he’d ever known couldn’t only bring him into a light doze that he kept waking up from.

“Guys? _Bravo_ want to start.” Their personal assistant brought them back inside and Tom plumped himself back next to Bill, his stomach tight.

He tried to stay as engaged as possible while the same questions as earlier were asked and Bill gave the same answers, as if they had been rehearsed. Which they certainly had been. The interview lasted an excruciating two hours while the magazine got the material that they wanted, along with a casual photoshoot. The photoshoot of course involved a lot of shots with just the twins posing together, laughing, and having a good old time.

Bill played his part perfectly, doing a wide fake laugh and pouting at the camera. He was so self-absorbed that, if there was a camera involved, he could play any part and display any emotion that was necessary in the moment.

Eventually, the ordeal ended and they all quickly thanked the magazine and their team before heading downstairs to the reception and to the bar. The four of them ordered a drink and sat together in a secluded booth in the corner of the small bar. They drank together silently for an awkward moment before Bill broke the silence.

“Did you stay with Emilia last night?” Bill’s voice was thin, as if uncaring and Tom glanced over at Georg, unsure of himself.

“Oh…yeah.” He stammered out, pairing it with a forced casual shrug while Bill nodded thoughtfully, avoiding Tom’s eye.

“Maybe you should stay with her again tonight.”

The words felt like Bill had punched him right in the stomach and in a move that he knew was incredibly childish, Tom stood, grabbed his drink, and threw it right in Bill’s face. He stormed out and couldn’t stop the tears rolling down his cheeks as he slammed his car door shut and slumped over the steering wheel.

Tom dialled Emilia’s number but there was no answer. He blinked hard, regaining his composure before pulling out of the carpark and driving the short drive to his apartment, running right upstairs. He grabbed a suitcase from under his bed and filled it with as many pieces of clothing as he could fit inside it, along with his toiletries, laptop, tablet…anything that he could think he might need in the ten minutes that he was there. The tears fell freely as he ran back down to the carpark just as Bill pulled into the reserved space beside his. Tom’s stomach dropped as he realised that he had enjoyed the look of horror on Bill’s face as he watched Tom throw his case into his car with tears streaming down his undoubtedly bright red face.

“Tom!” Bill cried out just as Tom wiped his eyes and slid into the driver’s seat, “Tom, I didn’t-” Tom didn’t hear the rest of it as he started up the engine and sped out.

It was only once he was out of the road that Tom realised that he didn’t have anywhere to go. Emilia was at work. Gustav was with his family and Georg’s girlfriend hated him anyway – a hate that had no doubt grown with her pregnancy. He had plenty of friends in the city, of course, but no one he could go to while bright red with tears. So, he drove aimlessly around Berlin, looking. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just for something that grabbed his attention. Finally, he spotted a branch of KFC and without engaging his brain, he pulled into the drive through.

“Yeah, can I get an original bucket with fries and a cola please?” He paid quickly, avoiding eye contact with the pretty blonde who served him and took the bucket. He parked and ripped off the lid, stuffing a few fries in his mouth before picking up a deliciously greasy piece of deep fried chicken thigh. He was just about to take a bite when his phone rang.

“Fuck, Em…”

_“Tom? Are you ok?”_

“Can I stay with you tonight?”

_“What? Yeah, of course you can. What’s going on?”_

“Bill’s kicked me out. I’m sorry to call you at work. I’ll see you later, babe.”

_“Tom-”_

“Please, babe. I’ll see you later.”

Tom hung up the phone and before he knew what he was doing, he had devoured four pieces of chicken and a portion of fries. It had been nearly nine years since he had turned vegetarian but this wasn’t the first time that he had eaten meat. He was pushed into vegetarianism by Bill. Not that he didn’t want to cut out meat. Since he was around eighteen, he had felt particularly passionate about animal cruelty and had spent a lot of time educating himself about the meat industry. He wasn’t as militant about the issue as Bill was, however.

The first time he had ‘cheated’ had been around a year after they had made the change. It hadn’t been a big deal in Tom’s eyes. He had gone on a night out with Bill and a few friends in L.A. After way too many drinks and a couple of lines, he had grabbed a beef burger and fries from McDonalds, bringing it back to their place to eat before passing out on the sofa. The next day, Bill had smacked him awake and Tom was barely conscious while Bill yelled at him, waving the half-eaten burger around. Due to his blistering headache, Tom had dutifully apologised just so Bill would leave him alone and he could fall back to sleep.

As a relatively wealthy musician in his twenties, alcohol, cigarettes and drugs like marijuana and coke had lost their entire rebellious nature. So, with both his partner and twin being staunch vegetarians, he found an odd sense of rebellion in eating meat when his subconscious had felt the need to piss off either of them. When Ria had initially refused to move to America with him and they broke up for six months, he had secretly eaten burgers every day for several weeks. When Alex made a move on Ria and Bill didn’t do anything, Tom had shovelled chicken nuggets into his face. Tom was aware that it was silly and rather childish, but it made him feel better and very few things could do that.

It wasn’t long before he had finished the bucket and he was back on the road. It was half an hour before Emilia was due to finish work by this point so Tom decided to go over to the Charlottenburg district to pick her up. He had driven from his apartment so aimlessly that he found himself with little idea as to where exactly he was and when he turned on his GPS system, he found that he was in Potsdam, a 40-minute drive from Berlin. With a headache brewing from his uncontrollable crying, Tom shut off his music and concentrated just on the GPS as he drove.

Tom let his mind wander as he drove along the unusually quiet main road, enjoying the space and temporary tranquillity with the window wound down slightly to feel the breeze on his neck. He took a few deep breaths, which were still shaky, as he fully retrieved his composure. He tried to focus on the positives of the situation he had put himself in. He smiled to himself at the prospect of spending another night with Emilia. He may not be able to have sex with her but spending time with her was enough for Tom. For now, anyway. Every time he saw her, he found himself increasingly attracted to her. He had never been so immediately drawn to a person in his life. They had known each other for only three weeks but he craved her attention and her affection.

Tom was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice his phone ringing for about half a minute. It was an unknown number so he let it go to voicemail and thought nothing of it when whoever it was left him a message, thinking that he would simply listen to it later that evening.

It wasn’t long before Tom passed a ‘Welcome to Charlottenburg, Berlin’ sign and he soon pulled up outside the _Prada_ store. He was nearly 15 minutes late so he called Emilia to make sure she hadn’t left already. She was still gathering her things and hadn’t yet left for the subway when he phoned and soon came out of the front entrance wearing a low cut, figure hugging grey wrap dress and an excited smile. Tom leaned over to open the door for her and kissed her, harder than he intended.

“What are you doing here?”

“Can’t have the girlfriend of Tom Kaulitz getting the subway home, can we?” Tom grinned, stealing another kiss before he pulled off, driving back to her apartment and parking beside her own car.

“Are you ok?” Emilia asked as Tom parked and undid his seatbelt. He was tempted to lie but he just sighed and shook his head, avoiding eye contact, “Ok. Come on, let’s go get a drink and relax.” Tom took Emilia’s hand as they walked into the tall block and went up to Emilia’s apartment. Alfie ran around their feet as they came in and Tom sank to his knees to scoop the puppy up in his arms.

“Go sit, I’ll get you a drink.” Emilia got a few beers from the fridge as Tom cuddled Alfie on the sofa.

“Thanks.” Tom kissed her as she sat beside him and he took a long drink.

“So, why did you have to stay here tonight? Not that I mind, of course,” She murmured, curling up on the sofa as she nestled into him, his arm around her shoulders.

“Bill told me I couldn’t go home tonight. He’s still hurt because of what I said. Can’t blame him, I guess,” Tom shrugged, petting Alfie as he dozed.

“Why don’t you go and have a hot shower and a lie down while I make dinner?”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course,” Emilia smiled softly, running the back of her hand over his thick beard, “you need to go and relax.”

“Fuck, you’re amazing.” Tom kissed her, gently picking up a half-conscious Alfie and lying him in her lap before heading to the bathroom. Emilia’s small, all white bathroom was spotless. Pristine with the glass shower cubicle against a frosted window. He quickly stripped off and let down his hair before he noticed his phone flashing with the voicemail from the call he had missed when he was driving to pick up Emilia. He picked up his phone.

_“Tom…it’s me. I know you know I’m back in Berlin. I didn’t know you were here, really. I thought you were in Hamburg. Anyway…we should talk. I don’t wanna do this whole thing through lawyers. I know you’re going on tour soon but please call me so we can meet before you go. I…I’m sorry for everything, Tom. Really. I miss you.”_

Tom stepped into the hot water and his long, drenched hair fell in front of his face as he planted a hand against the glass to steady himself while he breathed heavily, trying to stop himself from bursting into a fresh set of tears. But he failed. Tom clamped a hand over his mouth as he screamed.

_I miss you._

_I miss you._

_I miss you._

Tom slid to his knees. He was surprised he still had any tears left. How could she call him and tell him that she missed him? She left him! She must have listened to the dozens of heartbroken voicemails that he had left her when she left. How dare she have the audacity to call and tell him that she _missed_ him? On the day she left, she had tainted nearly every happy memory he had of the previous seven years. What could there possible be to talk about? As if she would ever grant him the courtesy of finally telling him why she left. If there even was a reason.

He rubbed his face furiously, angry that he had allowed himself to get so upset. He wasn’t upset anymore. He was just angry that she could be such an uncaring, insensitive bitch.

Gritting his teeth, Tom took a deep, shaky breath and smoothed his thick hair away from his face as he pulled himself up on his feet and shut off the water. He stepped out of the cubicle and wrapped a fluffy white towel around his waist, stepping out of the room and went to the bedroom.

Tom rather adored Emilia’s bedroom. He loved his own, of course, but it often felt like it had leapt from the pages of an interior design catalogue; too perfect and clinical. The room glowed with hues of burnt oranges, browns, and soft blacks. The mattress was beautiful soft and Tom sank his naked body into it, draping the thick, woollen autumnal blanket along his lower body.

“Are you ok?” Tom opened his eyes at the sound of Emilia’s voice and looked up to see her peering around the door, stepping inside.

“Yeah,” he lied, “feeling much better.”

“Good,” she beamed, “I just need to get changed.” Knowing that it would be expected of him, Tom watched at Emilia slid off her dress and her breasts positively nearly burst out of her lacy purple bra. After sliding on a pair of dark grey skinny jeans and white t-shirt, she sat on the edge of the bed beside Tom, cupping his cheek in her hand as she leant down to kiss him softly. He reached up to weave his fingers through her thick hair as they kissed gently, almost lazily.

“You’re sure you’re ok?” She murmured as she let up and he nodded.

“Yeah, of course. I’ll just get dressed and I’ll come help you cook, yeah?”

“No, no. You stay here. I’ll bring it in when it’s done and we’ll talk or watch TV…whatever you want, yeah?” She gave him another small kiss and went back out to the kitchen. Tom wanted to smack himself as he swallowed yet another lump in his throat. He jumped up and unzipped his suitcase, pulling on a pair of lounge pants before collapsing back into bed.

He wanted to forget Ria’s message, forget what it said at least until he went back home. He didn’t want it, _her_ , to interfere with the time he spent with Emilia. He didn’t want the two women to ever mix, in any way, shape, or form. As far as Tom was concerned, Emilia was far too good a person to be affected by the venomous figure of his soon-to-be ex-wife. But how could he just disengage from the message that was relentlessly swirling about his head? He hadn’t heard her voice in months; not since Bill had deleted all the videos of her that he had on his phone. From the dirty ones to the ones in bars to the ones at their wedding party, Bill had deleted every one. He had been furious at the time but soon saw that it was for the best. Tom had been watching them all, over and over again, for hours on end.

Her voice sounded different to how he remembered.

“You eat seafood, right?”

“Yeah, just meat I don’t eat.” Tom felt rather embarrassed as he spoke, remembering the ridiculous amount of fried chicken he had wolfed down earlier that day. He sat up as Emilia brought two plates of chilli tomato pasta with prawns into the room, sitting beside him as she passed him his food.

Emilia switched on the TV to some American show with hilarious German dubs and they ate together in comfortable silence. When they finished, she put the plates on the floor and curled up, nestling herself back into him, into his bare chest.

“So,” She slid a hand onto his stomach, “I’m your girlfriend, am I?” Tom’s stomach clenched as he realised what he had said outside _Prada_.

“I…uh…yeah. I mean, if you…do you?” Tom rolled his eyes at his incoherence and opened his mouth to speak again when he was cut off with a kiss.

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?”

“What?”


	9. No Pressure

_Call me._

_Can’t you read? I said call me!_

_Seriously, you’re going to ignore me? Call me now!_

_Tom, ffs. I’m not playin with you. Fucking call me!!!_

_You’re a fucking cock._

Tom ignored every message from Georg’s girlfriend, Meg. Her temper was unbearable at the best of times, never mind when she was all hormonal and had heard about his fallout with Bill. While she couldn’t stand Tom, she positively adored Bill. He could do no wrong in her eyes and Tom had seen her chastise Georg for bitching about Bill on more than one occasion.

Tom and Meg hadn’t always had such a fractious relationship. She and Georg had met around the same time that Tom had met Ria, in mid-2009 and so their relationships had blossomed together. For the next year, before the twins moved to L.A., they would double date, go out for food, for drinks, partying…and they all got on well. Meg and Ria formed a friendship that was still as firm as ever, with Meg being a bridesmaid at their wedding. Meg was even the first person – after Bill, of course – that Tom told about his plan to propose.

But a few months before Ria left, Meg suddenly seemed to turn against him. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, it just so happened that her and Georg stopped visiting and stopped inviting them over. Though she would happily invite Ria over, whenever Tom would go to Georg’s house, she would treat him as a complete nuisance.

Tom never found out why and the less he had to speak to her, the better.

“You’re supposed to be relaxing.” Emilia’s playful scolding snapped him out of his thoughts and he turned to face her as she walked into the room.

“I was!”

“No, you weren’t, you were frowning.”

“I’m not allowed to frown now?”

“Not when you’re already so tense. Sit up and scoot forward a little.” She directed and Tom did as he was told, sitting up in her bed before she knelt behind him and brushed his long, loose hair over his shoulders. He groaned as she started to massage him, firmly and deeply.

“Damn…”

“Good?”

“Fucking yeah it is…oh God…just like that.” Tom wasn’t sure anyone had ever given him a massage before. If he knew how good it could feel, he would have begged Ria for one like he would beg her to give him a blowjob.

Ok, so maybe the massage wasn’t quite that good.

But it was exactly what he needed. He had spent the day with the rest of the band rehearsing for their tour that started just the next week and it had been a nightmare. The rehearsal was supposed to have only lasted for around two hours. It was literally just a case of playing the set and leaving. They knew what they were doing – they had been planning and practising the show for months – but as they had launched into the show’s opener, _Something New_ , Tom realised that he was working with a bunch of complete imbeciles. Bill kept missing his cue, Georg got confused over whether he should be using the laptop or the keyboard at any given time and Gustav had messed up during the drumming set he was sharing with Tom in the middle of the show.

You knew things were fucked when Gustav didn’t know what he was doing.

“That’s it…fuck,” Tom groaned as Emilia hit just the right spot and he started to feel his tension melting away beautifully. While one hand worked on a particularly tight knot on his right shoulder blade, her other hand ran along his waist to settle on his stomach.

“What if we…y’know, gave it another try?” She whispered and suddenly all his tension came straight back.

“Em…I can’t,” Tom murmured, swallowing hard.

“What if we light a joint, have a shower and just chill. If it happens, it happens and if not…” she shrugged, “no big deal, yeah? No pressure.” He closed his eyes, breathing deeply as he felt her whisper into his ear.

“No pressure?”

“Never,” She smiled, kissing just under his ear, “did you bring your pot?”

“I got a couple joints rolled in my tin. It’s in my jacket.” Tom watched as Emilia got his jacket from the back of her dressing table chair and pulled out his tin, lighting a joint and sitting opposite him on her bed.

“When was the last time you got laid?” He asked before she put the joint between his lips.

“September ish,” She shrugged.

“With an ex?”

“Oh, god no. I’ve never really had a proper boyfriend,” She said, nonchalant as she took a drag for herself, not seeming to notice the bewildered look on Tom’s face for a moment, “What?”

“You’ve never had relationship? Why?” He could only look at her peculiarly while she avoided making eye contact.

“When my parents died, I became my little sister’s primary carer. I guess a fat chick with a younger sister in tow isn’t exactly what guys are looking for nowadays,” She tried keeping her tone light but the note of regret was obvious and Tom leaned in to kiss her softly, “Nah, my main focus was paying the bills and feeding Sofie.”

“Where is Sofie now?” Tom asked lightly.

“She went to Munich for university,” Emilia beamed, putting the joint back between Tom’s full lips, “she’s a good kid. You’d like her.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, she’s always been the creative one of the family. She’s doing a German literature degree, wants to be a writer.”

“Have you told her about us?” Tom said after a small pause, stroking a hand up her thigh and to her hip.

“Yeah, of course. She freaked, she used to have a bit of a crush on Bill when she was a kid.” They both laughed.

“Ah so she has terrible taste, yeah?” Tom smirked, watching as Emilia took a long drag.

“Nowhere near as good as me, clearly.”

“Ask your sister if she wants to come to our Munich show, I’ll send her some tickets.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

“You’re so sweet.”

“This was meant to be our sexy time and we’re talking about your sister.”

“Awkward. You better not have a boner right now, freak.”

They laughed as Tom’s phone vibrated, making him roll his eyes.

“Do you need to get that?”

“No. It’s just Georg’s girlfriend. She keeps texting me, wanting me to call,” Tom shrugged, leaning into for a kiss to try and change the subject.

“So why don’t you call?”

“She’s pregnant and hormonal and hates me at the best of times. She probably only wants to talk to tell me I’m a cock.” Tom leaned back on his elbows, smiling lazily up at Emilia as she offered him another drag. They smoked in silence for a while, touching and kissing each other tenderly, teasingly. Tom leaned back to let Emilia slip off his shirt, grinning as he watched her. He hadn’t been to the gym in months and hadn’t been so skinny in months so watching her so eager to run her hands all over his chest just felt incredible.

“Tell me what you like,” Emilia murmured, “fetishes, maybe? No judgment here.”

“I…well I dunno. I mean…I kinda like feet. Never explored it though so I dunno…” Tom shrugged, feeling his face go bright red as he avoided eye contact and when he eventually did look up at Emilia, he felt his chest go tight as he saw the smirk on her face, “Ok, you don’t need to laugh at me,” He muttered.

“I wasn’t!”

“You were smirking.”

“ _Affectionately_ ,” she cupped his cheek in her hand, “you don’t even know how sweet you are, honestly.” She kissed him, smoothing down the fly away strands of his thick hair as she leaned into his ear, “Tell me your fantasies,” she whispered, making Tom swallow hard.

“My…my favourite fantasy is a threesome with two girls.” He started breathing deeply as Emilia straddled him, sitting right on his lap. She pressed the joint back between his lips.

“Yeah? Tell me about it,” she murmured, “what do they look like? Where are they positioned?” He swallowed hard again, butterflies in his stomach.

“So, I’m…like…lying down and there’s a petite blonde girl with small-ish tits and a fat, round ass, ah,” he coughed, “riding me and a curvy black girl with big tits, a big ass and these amazing thick thighs sitting on my face.”

“All attention on you?” Emilia whispered in Tom’s ear, her fingertips stroking up and down his back.

“Hey, I’m not selfish. I’m licking pussy!” He protested with a grin before sliding off her tight shirt.

“Yeah, but we both know that you love eating-” Tom cut her off with a hard, deep kiss. His fingers weaved through her long hair while his other hand held her waist tightly, pressing her chest to him. They simultaneously groaned into their kiss as they fell back and Tom skimmed his hand down Emilia’s body to grope her round ass.

“We should-”

“Yeah.”

They both got up and Tom grabbed her hand as they ran to the bathroom. They undressed each other between frantic kisses, stepping into the shower. Emilia yanked the hair tie out of Tom’s hair and gasped as he held her close with one arm firmly around her waist, groping her ass and the other grasping her hair roughly.

Tom’s head was spinning. His only focus was Emilia; making sure she was close, that he could feel every inch of her soft skin against him. The sensation of the hot water spraying down on them only served to elevate his already heightened senses from the pot. He gripped her thigh, pulling it around his waist, his eyes snapping open when he hears her moan.

“Tom! You-” He cut her off with a desperate kiss, grinding against her as he revelled in a sensation he had nearly forgotten.

Completely drenched, Tom reluctantly broke their kiss and led her back to the bedroom. They kicked the door shut to stop Alfie disturbing them and Tom grabbed his jacket, frantically fishing through his wallet to find a rubber as he watched Emilia lie back on the bed. The natural soft lighting of her bohemian bedroom highlighted her beautifully and he found himself oddly nervous but deliriously excited as he leaned over her. He kissed her softer now, taking his time to drink in the sensation of having her beneath him. He brought her thick thigh firmly back around his waist, biting her bottom lip as she dug her nails into his shoulder blades.

“Fuck!” Tom didn’t even know who cried out with profanities first as he slipped his cock inside her. He groaned, bracing himself against the headboard as he took in the delicious sensation. So warm. So wet. So… _tight_.

“Tom…” He hadn’t been so happy to hear his name in so long when it emerged from her lips in a desperate moan. Tom took a heavy breast in his hand, playing with a tight nipple as he kissed her neck and started to thrust inside her. As they moved together, it was slightly awkward while he adjusted to her. He was so used to being with girls that he could literally just throw around but, as he gripped her hips, her thighs…those fucking _perfect_ breasts, he realised that this was exactly where he wanted to be.

It didn’t last very long though.

“Tom…” Emilia whispered, trying to keep him close but he all but jumped up and yanked on his boxers before she could even think about stopping him.

“I’m sorry,” He choked out, pulling on his jeans as he sat back on the edge of the bed. Emilia got up and pulled on a long t-shirt, crawling over to Tom to take his hand in hers while he covered his face with the other.

“You don’t need to be sorry,” She murmured as she leaned over to kiss his cheek, making him turn away.

“Why are you like this? Why are you _so_ forgiving?” He asked, utterly frustrated.

“Because there’s nothing to forgive,” She said softly, tightening her grip on his hand as he turned back towards her, anxious confusion etched on his face.

“How can you be so understanding, then? We’ve both wanted this since we first kissed and when we _finally_ could I ruined it! No one is that understanding!”

“Ok, fine, I’ll tell you. After my parents-” Emilia was cut off by the persistent vibrating of Tom’s phone on the bedside table.

“Sorry,” Tom leaned over to see Bill’s name flashing across his screen, “I gotta take this.”

_“Tom, you need to get back here.”_

“I thought you didn’t want me there?” Tom bit out with a scowl.

_“Ria’s here.”_

Tom hung up the phone.

“I have to go,” Tom muttered, pulling on his t-shirt, and grabbing his jacket. He was out the door and running down the stairs before Emilia could say a word.

Tom knew he shouldn’t be driving. He was still high, still frustrated and still angry at himself. But nothing was going to stop him getting to his apartment as quickly as possible.

He called Bill.

“What the fuck is she doing there?”

_“I don’t know! She just wants to talk to you.”_

“Tell her she better have something worthy of my fucking time.”

Tom hung up and sped well above the speed limit to get back to his apartment in record time. Still seething with frustrated anger, he slammed shut his car door and ran up the stairs to storm into the apartment. He was immediately confronted by Bill who stalled him by placing a pair of forceful hands onto his shoulders.

“She’s on the balcony. Don’t go out there and start having a go at her, ok? She seems kinda upset.” As Bill spoke, Tom looked at him as if he had just grown a second head.

“ _Kinda upset_? She left me, Bill! She fucking left me! She left me and she never told me why!” With anger churning in his stomach, Tom shoved Bill aside and made his way through the recording studio. He planned to thunder out onto the balcony, tell her that she was a callous bitch and that she could fuck off.

But when Tom was a few steps away from the door, he stopped.

Ria was standing and leaning against the rails, looking out on the beautiful view of the great lake before her. Her long, silky soft wavy chocolate hair blew gently around her in the evening breeze. Her long, toned legs were being shown off in a pair of skinny jeans with that tight ass that he’d always found so irresistible on such prominent display.

Tom’s heart was racing as he looked out wistfully at his wife in the gentle light of the Berlin evening.

He walked with unsteady legs onto the balcony, his chest tightening as she turned around and he saw that beautiful, heart shaped face look over to him with a small, nervous smile.

“Hi, Tomi.”


	10. The Difference

“Hi, Tomi.” Ria flashed Tom a soft smile, pouting her full lips as her soft, long hair blew around her shoulders. The dimming sun made her skin glow and outlined her lithe, toned figure. Hearing Ria call him by her pet name for him made Tom take a step back, as if she’d pushed him. It was unsettling, as if nothing had happened. As if they had woken up in bed together that morning in each other’s arms, cherishing the time they had together before he had to leave her to go on tour.

As she stepped towards him, Tom took a proper look at her and saw her hair extensions, injected lips and her boob job. How fitting. Suddenly, Tom wasn’t so wistful anymore.

“My name is Tom.” He closed the door behind them and faced her, making sure to keeping his face stony.

“I always call you-”

“Really? You’re gonna go there?”

“Tom…” Ria trailed off as she stepped towards Tom, a soft smile upon her full lips, “It’s so good to see you.” Sensing the tension that radiated off him, she thought better of reaching out to touch him and took a tentative step back.

“What are you doing here?” Tom asked, making Ria drop her gaze and pull out a chair, taking a seat. Tom followed suit, impatiently, on the opposite side of the table. He watched, blinking furiously to stop the sting in his eyes as he saw her fiddle with the pink diamond ring he had given her. The wedding ring was thread through a silver chain around her neck.

“Meg said that you have a girlfriend,” She murmured after a small silence as Tom gritted his teeth. How dare she bring that up in such an unapologetically accusatory tone. As if he was doing something wrong. As if he wasn’t allowed to connect with another woman. As if he wasn’t the one who had been left so broken by what she did to him and didn’t deserve any of the renewed happiness he had finally found.

“Are you here to talk about her?” Tom bit out, “We can talk about her if you like. She’s sweet, she’s funny and she’s got a huge pair of tits.” His heart hammered as he saw the pain on Ria’s face. She was deeply insecure about the size of her chest. Flat chested when they met, she hadn’t let him see her bare breasts for several months. They had only been together for around a year when Tom offered to pay for breast enlargement surgery because he saw just how much it affected her and her confidence. She had an ample chest now. But Tom knew perfectly well that having fake tits was very much a source of insecurity for her still.

“No. No, I’m not.”

“Then what? What, Ria?” Tom demanded but Ria didn’t say anything for a moment. Tom rolled his eyes, sighing as he leaned forward to light a cigarette.

“I miss you,” She mumbled, making Tom sneer, “I miss you so much.” Ria leaned forward to take Tom’s hand in hers tentatively. He stiffened as he felt her soft hand on his and his heart started to hammer in his chest, his anger turning to confusion as she repeated what she had said in the voicemail she had left him.

“Don’t,” Tom whispered, closing his eyes but he didn’t move his hand away.

“I _do_ , Tom. Every morning when I wake up, I reach out for you. Not having you with me is like a part of me is missing. I know you in a way that no one else does. The way you’re so different with me. So sweet and gentle. You’ve got such a kind heart.” Ria trailed off for a moment to take a deep, shaky breath, “I never should have left and I’ll never be able to tell you how much I regret doing what I did. Because I _love_ you, Tom. I have done since the first day we met and I know you feel the same way! Please forgive me. I’ll spent the rest of our lives proving to you how much you mean to me.” As Ria spoke, Tom stared at her, completely bewildered. He shook his head slowly, his breathing laboured as his chest became tight. He took a few deep breaths, as if opening his lungs and snatched his hand away.

“Would you listen to yourself! Do you hear what you’re saying? Do you not hear how fucking mental you sound?” Tom couldn’t stop the bitter laugh coming out as he lounged back in his chair, taking a long drag of his cigarette.

“Tom-”

“I mean, first off, you want me to forgive you?”

“Well, yeah.” Ria looked up at him while Tom gritted his teeth at the desperate look in her eyes.

“So why don’t you tell me what I’m forgiving you for?” Tom murmured, darkly, “Why don’t you finally give me the fucking courtesy of telling me why you walked out on me?” Tom was raging now but still Ria didn’t move to say anything. She just looked down, avoiding his eye and Tom scoffed, rolling his eyes incredulously, “You don’t think I deserve to know why my marriage has ended?”

“It doesn’t have to end!”

“ _You_ are the one who fucking ended it!”

“I was wrong to do that. It doesn’t have to end!” Ria asserted, smiling as she reached forward for Tom’s hand again. This time, he snatched his hand away and stubbed out his cigarette.

“Yes, it does. It’s over, Ria. I’ve filed for divorce and I’ve moved on.” Tom tried to say it as casually as possible but every inch of him was still tense. He watched as her jaw visibly tightened.

“What, with some rebound whore?” The venom dripping from her words was jarring and only served to inflame Tom’s growing anger and frustration.

“Fuck, you really aren’t the person I thought you were.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She murmured and Tom leant forward with a deep, long sigh.

“The woman I fell in love with was kind. She called me every day on tour to make sure I was eating and sleeping. She would never have betrayed me like this. Wouldn’t even have dreamt of it.” He was trying to butter her up a little but it wasn’t working. She didn’t say a word but just shrank back in her chair like a naughty child and Tom was rapidly losing his patience. “Ria! I have a right to know why my fucking marriage ended! You have no right to just leave me and not tell me why!”

“I can’t, Tom,” Ria whispered and Tom closed his eyes, defeated.

“How can you expect me to forgive you when I don’t know what I’m forgiving you for?” He said quietly, as calmly as he could manage.

“You have to give me time. I can’t…I just can’t. Not yet.” Ria sounded pained, scared almost. If Tom didn’t feel such resentment towards her, he would have felt sorry for her. Instead, he stood with an exhausted sigh.

“Then there’s really nothing else to say. You can leave now.” Tom watched as Ria’s face fell.

“But, I thought-”

“What?” Tom interrupted, fed up, “You thought that you could come here, tell me that you miss me with a few empty sentiments and I would…what? Call up my lawyer and drop the divorce? Move you back in and make love to you right here on this balcony under the damn stars?” Tom snorted, shaking his head, “I knew you were a dreamer but I didn’t know you were a fucking fantasist.” He watched as she nodded, speechless and grabbed her handbag.

“I’m sorry,” Ria said quietly as she approached the door, turning around slightly, “I shouldn’t have come.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Tom nodded, without looking over, “You look fucking ridiculous still wearing that eyesore, by the way.”

Ria quickly left and, shaking his head, Tom fell back into his seat to light another cigarette. He felt numb. He couldn’t quite believe that he had just had a conversation with her; couldn’t believe she had been right in front of him. Quite frankly, Tom found it almost inconceivable that Ria had been holding his hand in hers just a few minutes earlier. The last time they had touched was the morning before he left for Europe for the promotion of Bill’s EP. He had had to wake up early to head to the airport and though he had tried not to wake her, she had woken up anyway just as he was leaving to give him a parting kiss.

If Tom had known that it was to be their last, he would have made more of an effort to imprint it on his brain. As it was, he could barely remember it through the fog of exhaustion. He had spent so long being devastated about that.

“Are you ok?” Bill’s voice snapped Tom out of his thoughts as he stepped out onto the balcony, sitting tentatively in the seat opposite. Suddenly, every inch of tension, anger, stress and uncertainty came bursting out in a stunned laugh.

“Am I ok?” Tom scoffed, “Am I ok? I’m not sure I know the meaning of the word anymore, Bill. In between this fucking tour, the disaster that is Treehouse Ticketing and Ria being a psycho bitch, my head feels like it’s going to explode. Never mind feeling like a failure every time I see Em,” Tom shook his head as he took a long, soothing drag.

“Tom, you… _we_ have done a great job with the tour and Treehouse are just a necessary evil but we’ve pretty much sorted out their shit. Ria is soon going to be ancient history-” Tom disbelievingly shook his head as Bill spoke. How was it that he could put his fears, stresses and worries into perspective with just a couple of sentences?

“I don’t know. I have no fucking idea why she bothered coming here. I mean, why come here, nine months after she left and then refuse to tell me why she left? She’s got me thinking all sorts. Were the police after her and that’s why she had to leave the States? Was she ill and thought I wouldn’t be able to cope?” Tom shrugged helplessly and shook his head.

“You’re letting your imagination run away with itself. You know as well as I do that she wasn’t Walter White on the run from the feds. There’s probably a perfectly simple explanation to it all.”

“Oh yeah, like what?”

“Like she was probably just having an-” Bill cut himself off with wide eyes as he realised what he was about to say. Tom smiled scornfully and nodded.

“An affair? Yep, you’re probably right. I’ve always thought that. I just have to believe that’s not true.”

“Isn’t it better that than her being on the run or being sick?”

“Oh, she’s sick alright,” Tom scoffed, “but no Doctor can help her. You should have seen her. She made this long speech about how much she misses me. She actually thought that that would make it all alright and I’d just take her back. Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable.” They smoked together in silence for a moment before Bill spoke again.

“And what on Earth do you mean that Emilia makes you feel like a failure?”

“It’s not her. _She_ doesn’t make me feel like a failure. I just am one.”

“How?” Bill was frowning now, confused. Tom swallowed hard, avoiding Bill’s eye as he scratched his cheek awkwardly.

“I…I can’t perform,” Tom muttered.

“What are you talking about? Is the sex so great that you forget how to play guitar?” Bill and Tom looked at each other with eyebrows raised, equally confused.

“No, you freak. I can’t _perform_ ,” Bill still looked blank and Tom dropped his voice, “I can’t get an erection.” As Tom confessed, Bill’s mouth dropped open in realisation while Tom’s phone started vibrating on the wooden table but he ignored it.

“It’s Emilia. Don’t you want to talk to her?”

“I wouldn’t know what to say to her.”

“Answer it.”

“No.”

“Answer it!”

“Are you fucking deaf? I said no!”

“Fine,” Bill sighed and grabbed Tom’s phone, answering it, “Hello, this is Bill. Tom is currently chained to the wall and his rent boy is just getting some whipped cream from the fridge-”

“You’re a fucking cock,” Tom snatched his phone out of Bill’s hand, “Sorry, that’s Bill’s idea of humour.” He kicked Bill under the table.

_“So, you’re not chained to the wall?”_

“Definitely not.”

 _“Is everything ok? You looked like you’d had a fright, I’ve been worried.”_ Tom smiled affectionately.

“No, it’s not but it’s fine. Not a big deal. I overreacted,” Tom lied, “I’m sorry for running out like that.”

  _“But you're sure you're ok?”_

“Why don't you come over? I'll show you.”

 _“Are you sure? What about Bill?”_ Tom looked over at his brother to see him nodding his approval.

“Don't you worry about Bill. Come over.”

Emilia happily agreed and Tom hung up to light another cigarette.

“You won't say anything funny now, will you?” Tom could see in Bill's eyes that he was tempted to make a sarcastic remark but, uncharacteristically, he bit his tongue.

“Of course not. I wouldn't say that shit to her _face_.”

“I don't want to hear you say that shit ever.” Tom replied pointedly and received a satisfying shrug and nod. Tom would have felt nervous about this. Bill could be incredibly judgemental and he had always been apprehensive about introducing his girlfriends to him. From his first girlfriend, Ann-Kathrin, to one or two fuck buddies in his late teens and even Ria. No, especially Ria. Tom remembered being sick with nerves when he invited Ria out for drinks with him and Bill. As luck would have it, they got on extraordinarily well and had forged a firm friendship based on fashion, partying and shared big ambitions.

But with his head still clouded over with the shock of Ria being here in his apartment, he couldn't even force himself to feel apprehensive.

It wasn't long before she arrived at the apartment and Tom buzzed her in. He greeted her at the door and hugged her tight. She really looked beautiful in a black based short floral jumpsuit with thick black pantyhose and matching black heels.

“I'm so sorry I left,” Tom cupped her face and tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear, “It wasn't anything to do with you. You know that, don't you?” He breathed a sigh of relief as she nodded.

“It wasn't because of...what happened, was it? Because you don't need to worry about that, sweetie.” As Emilia spoke, Tom wondered for a moment what on Earth she was talking about, such was the state of his mind following Ria's visit, before he remembered.

“No, no, not at all.”

“You know, if you ever want to...take something...you can. I won't judge you for it or anything,” She murmured quietly, kindly, “I meant what I said, it really isn't a big deal.”

“I'll think about it,” He smiled, leaning in to kiss her cheek, “C'mon, Bill's on the balcony.” He took her hand and led her outside. Bill was standing against the railings, his legs crossed at the shins, a cigarette between his fingers and a cool smile on his lips. He looked like a fucking mannequin.

“Bill, this is Emilia. Emilia, Bill.” Tom shuffled awkwardly as he introduced them and Bill flashed his brilliantly white, fixed smile.

“I've heard a lot about you,” Bill said as they all sat at the table and Tom lit their cigarettes, “Love that jumpsuit, by the way.” Tom raised his eyebrows in surprise as Bill offered his approval at Emilia's outfit, a sure-fire sign that he either approved of her or that he was trying his absolute best to get along with her for Tom's sake. Either way, Tom was relieved.

“Oh, thanks. It's Prada.”

“Oh, I _love_ Prada. I have so many pieces.”

“Yeah? I'll have to give Tom the new catalogue to show you.”

“But the new catalogue isn't out for another six weeks!”

“Didn't Tom tell you I'm a manager at the Prada on the Ku'damm?”

“You are?” Bill asked, his jaw dropping open with his eyes wide as he turned to Tom, “Why didn't you tell me that? That's wild!”

Tom watched as Bill and Emilia chatted animatedly about Prada’s autumn/winter collection and had to resist bursting out laughing when she told him that the pantyhose that she was wearing was from the new collection, prompting Bill to pull up her leg to have a feel of the material. As far as Tom was concerned, Bill was very lucky in that moment that he was gay.

“ _Really_? Clashing shades of red? Oh God, that will never go with this haircut!” Bill turned to Tom with panic flashing across his face.

“Oh, shut up,” Tom rolled with eyes good naturedly, “as if you’ll still have that haircut next season.” Bill nodded thoughtfully.

“Are you going to come to our Berlin show?”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Emilia turned to Tom, “Sofie is actually going to be in Berlin when you do your show here, so I was wondering if she could come with me to the show?” Tom shrugged with a nod.

“Yeah, no worries. We’ll get you some tickets.”

“You’ll have to come backstage. You don’t want to be queuing with the nutcases outside,” Bill said, waving his hand dismissively.

“Those nutcases are our fans,” Tom raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah, and I love them. Doesn’t mean they aren’t crazy,” Bill said with a knowing smirk, “Do you know how many marriage proposals I’ve had?” He said to Emilia with an eyebrow raised while Tom snorted.

“Big deal, we all get marriage proposals. Remember when that chick asked for a sample of my sperm to use in her IVF treatment?”

“No! Fuck off, that never happened!”

“You think that’s wild? Do you have any idea how many times we’ve come back after a night out and found a random girl in our hotel room?” Bill smirked, cracking open a bottle of beer.

“I still compulsively check under the bed and in the bathroom and wardrobe every time I stay in a hotel room,” Tom laughed, licking his lips as he saw the affectionate note in Emilia’s voice as she laughed along with him. Under the table, Tom took Emilia’s hand in his and took a deep, long breath as he leaned over to kiss her cheek.

“You two are cute.”

Tom’s heart soared.


	11. The List

“I love playing an acoustic guitar. Makes the chicks melt.”

“You have a girlfriend.”

“So? I didn’t say I wanted to fuck them, I just like the adoration.”

Tom was rehearsing for the Berlin rehearsal (he still wasn’t quite sure how that worked) with Bill and the Gs for the final time in Georg’s basement. With only a day to go until the public rehearsal, Tom was becoming increasingly panicked. He had so much to do in the show and though it was firmly embedded on his brain exactly what he had to do and when exactly he had to do it, the stress of it all was sucking any enjoyment out of the entire process. Take _Girl Got a Gun_ , for instance. He had to play the guitar, then switch straight to the keyboard, then over to the laptop, back to the keyboard and then repeat. He loved that song; loved the energy and it was just so much fun.

Except when he was performing it, apparently.

“I’m going to go get a coke,” Bill said, going to head up the stairs when Georg leapt up to grab his arm, stopping him.

“No!”

“What the hell?” Bill snatched his hand away and looked at Georg like he was mental.

“Seriously, don’t go up there. Meg’s really sick right now and she’s in a terrible mood. So, if you like having two balls, don’t go up there.”

“Really? That bad?” Gustav asked, the concern in his voice entirely obvious.

“Yeah, it’s getting to the point where she can’t keep anything down. I’m getting worried, you know? And knowing we’re going away in just a few days _really_ isn’t helping.” Georg ran a hand through his hair with a deep sigh, grabbing a bottle of water.

“Shit, what are you going to do?” Bill and Tom sat beside Georg on the floor.

“I have no idea. I figured she’d be over the morning sickness thing in a week or two.” Gustav snorted knowingly as Georg shrugged, helplessly, “Yeah, alright, I get it. I don’t have a fucking clue, do I?” Gustav slung a comforting arm around Georg’s shoulders.

“Can’t she go stay with her mother?” Bill asked.

“You’re kidding, right? I don’t know if I buy into the baby picking up on its environment when it’s still in the womb but I’m not willing to take the chance.”

As Georg and Gustav talked about his impending fatherhood, Bill and Tom shared a plate of sushi.

“So, are you going to miss Emilia when we leave?”

“Ugh, don’t ask,” Tom sighed, “I’m already dreading it.” Tom picked at his side of the sushi platter in contemplation. Yes, he had the Berlin concert to look forward to, especially since they had the day after free too – he had already planned a ridiculously romantic day with her in Berlin – but before then, he had to spent some incredibly busy and stressful four weeks without her. For the past few weeks, he had been able to rely on her whenever shit had been thrown up. He didn’t know how he was going to handle all the stresses that go hand in hand with being on tour without Emilia waiting for him when he got back to the tour bus.

“So, the whole…performance…thing,” Bill stuttered out.

“Yeah? What about it?”

“Well…I mean…do you really want to date someone who you’re not attracted to?”

“What?”

“I mean, I don’t _blame_ you. You’ve always been into tall, slim women. I know you like her but if you don’t think she’s sexy, then what’s the point?” As Bill spoke, Tom rolled his eyes and gave his thigh a light, punishing smack.

“No, you cock. I can’t _perform_ , period. I wake up with an erection but it goes after a minute or two. I haven’t even jacked off in months.”

“Fuck, _really_?” Bill stared at Tom, aghast, “You didn’t tell me it was that bad!” He hissed, making sure to keep his voice low enough so that the Gs wouldn’t overhear, “So you two haven’t fucked yet?” Tom looked down and took a deep breath.

“Yeah…well kinda. We started and…fuck, it was incredible. It was so fucking good but I couldn’t keep it up.” Tom hung his head, his body language betraying the bravado in the tone of his voice.

“Why don’t you just go and get some pills?” Apparently the Gs picked just that moment to pay attention to the twins’ conversation.

“You two aren’t still taking pills, are you? I thought you weren’t doing anything right now,” Georg asked, the hypocritical disapproval dripping from his words. Bill and Tom glanced at each other, awkwardly.

“No, not that kind of pills. We were talking about…you know…medicinal pills.” Tom looked over at Bill as he spoke and fought the urge to roll his eyes.

“Medicinal pills? You got another infection, Bill?” After Bill contracted chlamydia from stupidly getting fucked by a stranger without a rubber, it had become a source of intense amusement for both Georg and Gustav. Both took every opportunity that they could get to ridicule him for it. They both felt like he deserved it since Georg and Gustav got chlamydia at the same time when the band first rose to fame and Bill had teased them mercilessly for it for years, accusing them of contracting it from each other.

“N-no, I have a…you know, an ear infection.” Tom knew he was shit at making up lies on the spot.

“Right…so what are we doing tomorrow?” Gustav asked, changing the subject.

“Are we doing the obligatory party at the twins’ place to celebrate the start of the tour?” Bill asked. Over the years, they had made it something of a tradition to gather at Bill and Tom’s place before a tour – or leg of a tour – to eat pizza, get wasted and as high as possible.

“Oh, I was going to spend the night with Em.”

“Yeah, I should really look after Meg and make sure everything’s ok.”

“Yeah and I want to spend all the time I can with Britt.”

“You’re all dickheads,” Bill scowled at them all, wrinkling up his nose, “What about me?” Bill pouted, shoving another California roll into his mouth. Tom was about to tell him again to stop being a selfish cock when the door to the basement was pushed open and a flash of blue hair came down the stairs.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Georg got up and went over to Meg, who was carrying two bottles of water, “I thought you were going to spend the day on the sofa?” Georg pulled over a chair from the corner for Meg to sit on while Tom avoided looking at her.

“It’s so boring lying down all day. Daytime TV is so shit. You guys don’t mind, do you?” She smiled, a hand over her stomach as she sat down. Tom rolled his eyes; she was barely six weeks pregnant but she was already waddling and acting like she was about to pop, “Something wrong, Tom?”

“No, his eyes are just permanently like that.” Georg glared at Tom and he shrugged.

“Yeah, I’m permanently pissed off.”

“I’d have thought you would have gotten over that since you started getting laid again.”

“I would have thought _you_ would have pulled the stick out of your ass once you got pregnant.”

“Fuck you, Tom.”

“Ok, children, calm down,” Bill shook his head, “I know you’re friends with Ria, Meg but Tom’s happy and for fuck sake, Tom, you don’t say shit to a pregnant lady.”

“Yo, _that_ is not a lady!”

“Hey, fuck you!”

“Not if you paid me, you miserable bi-”

“Hey!” Georg shouted, “Choose your next words very carefully, Tom.” Tom groaned, defeated, and lay back on his elbows, fighting the urge to roll his eyes and give her that bit of satisfaction. As if she had room to take the piss out of anyone with her ridiculously electric blue hair.

“Ok, fine,” Tom held up his hands in surrender and was just about to insist on getting back to work (and throwing Meg out) when his phone vibrated.

_Are you staying at mine tonight? Xxx_

_I can’t, we’re going to be working late tonight. You wanna come over? Xxx_

_Sure! I’ll bring food? Xxx_

_You’re the best xxx_

“Em’s coming over later and she’s bringing food, that cool, Bill?”

“That girl definitely knows how to get into my good books.”

“She’s bringing food? What a shock, she probably carries around an emergency supply of chocolate in case she feels faint,” Meg smirked and Tom could only clench his jaw and remind himself that not only was she a woman, she was a _pregnant_ woman.

“Meg, c’mon, not cool.”

“So, are you staying to criticise the rest of our rehearsal or are you going to crawl back into the hole you came from?”

“No, I think you guys have to get back to _Kindergarten_ ,” Gustav shook his head, “Now, Tom, you set up and shut up and Meg, you stay there and shut up.” Like children who had been scolded by their parents, Tom and Meg did as they were told while the rest of them got back to their rehearsal space. Tom was about to play a riff on his guitar when his phone that he’d placed on the table before him started vibrating and he saw the email flash up on the screen.

_To:_ **[tkaulitz1989@treehouse.de](mailto:tkaulitz1989@treehouse.de) **

_From:_ **[dschmidt@treehouse.de](mailto:dschmidt@treehouse.de) **

_Subject:                Cancellation of Concerts_

_Mr. T. Kaulitz,_

_As I’m sure you’re aware, we had originally planned a concert in Copenhagen, Denmark, when we were first planning the Dream Machine 2017 tour but had to cancel because the venue in Hamburg that we wanted was only available on the only date that the venue in Copenhagen was available. As such, we concluded that the concert in Hamburg was more important and likely to be more successful and so we dropped Copenhagen from the tour. A similar situation occurred in relation to planned concerts in Barcelona, Madrid, Dublin, Dortmund, Istanbul and Bratislava._

_However, contracts were signed with these venues and as a result, the management for these venues are demanding that we compensate them for lost business on their part. Each venue is currently requesting an average of 12,000 Euros each with a total of 85,000 Euros to be paid._

_As the representative who signed the contract, without consulting us at Treehouse Ticketing, we have deemed that you alone will be responsible for the request of compensation. We are sending you this email as a courtesy and our lawyers will be in touch should you fail to send us confirmation of payment._

_We hope that this does not affect our working relationship in the coming weeks and months._

_David Schmidt_

_CEO of Treehouse Ticketing._

“Tom?” Bill must have seen the colour drain from Tom’s face as he was reading the email and he jumped as Bill put a hand on his shoulder, “Are you ok?” Weak, Tom silently passed his phone to his brother as he sank down to the floor, attracting the attention of Meg and the Gs.

“Hey, you lazy fucker, get up!” Meg called over, a smirk on her face.

“Shut up, Meg,” Bill muttered, shooting her a stern look, “Fuck, Tom,” Bill sank down to kneel before his brother, “Do you have that kind of money?”

“I don’t know.”

Tom did know. He knew perfectly well.

“Ok, ok, guys, I think we have this down,” Bill grabbed Tom’s arm and hauled him up and Tom could only look at the Gs’ perplexed looks as Bill walked him out of the room. Tom’s legs would hardly work as Bill helped him up the stairs and out to his car.

Bill tried to talk to him as he drove home but Tom didn’t respond. All he could think about was the _eight five thousand Euros_ that he was being asked to pay in compensation. It was his fault for prematurely signing the contracts, he knew that but he didn’t realise that they would expect to be compensated for them cancelling. They had cancelled before the concerts had been advertised and before any tickets were sold so Tom hadn’t thought any more of it.

A year earlier, such an amount would have been an absolute pain in his ass but it wouldn’t have been such a big deal. Now, what with his lawyers’ fees and funding the tour themselves, most of his savings had been depleted. He had the money but it would leave him with pretty much nothing to spare and the only assets he would have left would be his half of the house in L.A. and his three cars. He wouldn’t even have the cash to pay the rent on their Berlin place and pay for their hotel rooms across Europe.

“You know, I can pay half of it. I mean, it’s not fair that you pay all of it yourself.”

“It’s not your fault, you shouldn’t have to pay for my mistake.” Tom didn’t think he’d ever heard himself sound so monotone and void of emotion before.

“C’mon.” Bill opened the car door as they arrived back at their apartment block. They headed back upstairs and Tom went straight to his bedroom, kicking the door shut.

  1. _85,000 Euros down the drain._
  2. _Can’t get an erection._
  3. _Bill’s only being nice to me out of pity._
  4. _The show makes me want to cry._
  5. _Going to be paraded around the fans like a piece of meat._



“Tom? Tom!” Tom jumped as he was shaken awake by Emilia, “Tom, what’s this?” He yawned and rubbed his eyes as Emilia waved a piece of paper in front of him.

“What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t coming here until later?” He shifted over as she sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed over his hair.

“It is later. It’s nearly midnight, sweetie. You were asleep.” Emilia lay down beside him and stroked his arm as he woke up, yawning loudly.

“Fuck…it’s midnight?” She nodded, “Damn, I’ve been asleep for like four hours,” he muttered.

“Bill let me in about an hour ago. We’ve been having a drink together.”

“You have?”

“Yeah, he’s been really nice.”

“He has? I’ve been half convinced that he was just putting it on.”

“I thought you two had been getting on really well for the last couple of days?” She asked, kissing his cheek sweetly.

“Yeah, I don’t know. It still feels a little forced, I guess,” Tom ran a hand up and down Emilia’s back, shifting closer to her, “Let’s not talk about that right now…come here,” he gripped her hip and kissed her softly, inching her shirt up a little to feel her soft skin on the pads of his calloused fingers.

“No, Tom…” she broke their kiss and sat up a little, producing the piece of paper that she had been flapping in his face when she had woken him up, “C’mon, what’s this, sweetie?” Tom looked at the list that he must have written right before he had fallen asleep and sighed.

“I write lists sometimes. It helps me to process my thoughts and compartmentalise things so that they make sense and have a little order, you know?” He tried to say it casually but Emilia just looked at him with an eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, sure, I do that too. With shopping lists and to do lists…but this is, what? A list of worries?” Tom swallowed hard as he sensed anger and annoyance in her voice and inched away from her, rolling onto his back.

“Well, it’s more of a-”

“Tom, don’t lie to me. You owe nearly a hundred grand? Your tour makes you want to cry? You feel like a piece of _meat_? What the hell is going on?”

“Please don’t be mad at me,” Tom murmured as he slid off the bed and grabbed the list out of Emilia’s hand, “It’s no big deal, really.” He scrunched it up into a ball and threw it in the bin. There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment as he sank into the desk chair.

“I think I know why you can’t get an erection now,” Emilia asserted as she leaned over to take his hand in hers despite his obvious attempt to resist. He stared at her, confused. How could she possibly know when he had no idea?

“What are you talking about?”

“The prospect of a two-month tour is making you feel sick? Meeting your fans makes you feel degraded? You’re going through a _divorce_? I mean, is it any wonder that you’re depressed?” She held his hand in both of hers, stroking it comfortingly as he stared at her yet again, confused.

“What? I’m not depressed!” Tom jumped up, snatching his hand away.

“Tom-”

“Stop it! Ok? Just stop! I’m _fine_. This is _normal_. My job is incredibly stressful, ok? Anyone in this industry will tell you the same. I’m stressed because I don’t want to let my bandmates and the fans down, that’s all! It’ll all be worth it in the end when-”

“When you have a mental breakdown, and can’t get out of bed in the morning?” Emilia interrupted, raising her eyebrows as Tom shook his head, scoffing.

“How weak do you think I am?”

“It’s not about being _weak_ , Tom! It’s about doing what’s right for you.” She sighed and stood up, kissing the top of his head.

“Oh yeah?” Tom looked up at her with wide eyes, “And what’s right for me? Because short of having Ria killed off, cancelling the tour and magicking up eighty-five grand, I’m not exactly sure what I can do!” Tom closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as Emilia leaned down to wrap her arms around him, kissing his cheek.

“Well I know those first two can’t be avoided but what about this money? Can’t you sell your bikes or cars?”

“The bikes are leased but…yeah, I think I’m going to have to sell one of my cars in L.A.,” Tom blinked hard. He loved all his cars, it would kill him to pick one of them to sell.

“As for the Bill thing, have you-”

“I have thought about what you said and…I think you might be right. We’ve been talking about selling the house and moving to a different neighbourhood in L.A. but I’m thinking about buying my own place over there.”

“Really?” Emilia asked, visibly stunned and, as Tom looked up, he cocked his head to see the look on her face but instead of matching her disappointment, he broke out into a soft grin.

“Yeah.” Tom leaned forward to take Emilia’s face in his hands, “And I want you to come with me.”


	12. From Here to Barcelona

**_To:_ ** [ _dschmidt@treehouseticketing.de_ ](mailto:dschmidt@treehouseticketing.de)

**_From:_ ** [ _tkaulitz1989@treehouseticketing.de_ ](mailto:tkaulitz1989@treehouseticketing.de)

**_Subject:_ ** _Payment_

_Regarding your previous email, I would like to extend my apologies to you that I left Treehouse Ticketing in such a predicament. As I’m sure you will understand, I will have my lawyer look at the particulars of the claim and, should he deem it appropriate, I will write and send a cheque for 85,000 Euros as soon as possible to minimise any inconvenience._

_Tom Kaulitz._

“Wow, you actually made me sound sincere,” Tom laughed, shaking his head as he reread the email Emilia had written to Treehouse Ticketing’s CEO.

“Yeah, I thought it was pretty good too.”

It was the day before the public Berlin rehearsal gig and the unofficial start of the Dream Machine tour. The band had debated about spending the day doing a final rehearsal but with the Gs having family that they were about to leave for two months, they had decided against it. Besides, with how much they had been rehearsing in the past few months, each of them were sure that they could do the concert while comatose.

They had fallen asleep relatively early the night before in a marijuana induced coma and had been up since the early hours excitedly discussing their future together. It was something of a novelty for Tom to be up early enough for morning breakfast so he had insisted on taking Emilia to a cosy little French café on a quiet back street not far from his apartment. They had croissants, pain au chocolat and brioche with peaches, strawberries, orange juice and, of course, a lot of coffee. The beautifully rustic interior with mismatched wooden tables and large windows to let in the cool morning sun set the scene perfectly for their last day together.

“God, I felt so sick when they sent me that email yesterday.”

“Hey,” Emilia leaned over the table to take Tom’s hand, “it’s all ok now, you’ll have the money.” Tom smiled softly, holding her hand.

“And you’re sure that you’re on board with all this?”

“What, living with you in a country where McDonald’s are fucking huge? Yeah, I’m _totally_ on board.”

“And our own pool,” Tom lifted her hand to his lips, “our own sauna _and_ our own king size bed.”

“It’s going to be amazing, just you and me,” Emilia bit her lip as she looked over the property for sale that Tom had brought up on his iPad.

“You know, I really thought I was going to freak you out when I asked you to move to America. I mean, you’re sure you want this, aren’t you? What about Sofie?”

“Well I only see Sofie nowadays when she’s on holiday from university and she can always fly out or stay in my apartment. She’ll be happy for me, I’m sure.”

“You’re going to keep your apartment? Why?” Tom raised an eyebrow, confused.

“Well it’s all paid off so I don’t see why not.”

“But you said that you were going to put in two hundred grand?”

“Yeah, I have the money, don’t worry.”

“But-”

“Shh,” Emilia cut him off with a kiss, “don’t worry about it, seriously. I can’t wait to move out there with you.” Tom grinned bashfully and returned her soft kiss.

“Really?”

“Absolutely. I’ve wanted to get out of Germany for so long but I’ve always had Sofie with me, you know? So now I have the means and a reason.”

Tom couldn’t quite believe that they were discussing this. The night before, he had asked Emilia to move out to America with him really on a whim. He hadn’t given it any thought, he just knew in that moment that if he had to move back to the States, then he had to bring her with him. The prospect of spending four weeks on tour before he would get to see her again had only been adding to his stresses so he knew that he couldn’t go months at a time without her.

They had barely been together for a month so when the question left his lips, Tom was terrified that she would recoil in shock, tell him that it was too soon and he was out of his mind. Not that she wouldn’t have had a point. There was still so much that they didn’t know about each other; so much that he hadn’t told her, about Ria and his past in general. But their deep connection was such that Tom knew that he didn’t care. He wanted to be with her and that was it. He thought his heart would burst out of his chest when her mouth dropped open and she wrapped her arms around him, answering him with a long, deep kiss.

“You know when we move out there, you don’t have to work, right?”

“I can’t just sit around all day not doing anything!”

“No, what I meant was that you can do whatever you want to do. So, what do you want to do?” Tom smirked at the slightly bewildered look on Emilia’s face.

“I…I have no idea.”

“Well…do you want to write a book or a play? Do you want to act or sing?”

“Actually, I’ve wanted to…maybe…have my own fashion line,” Emilia looked up to see the thoughtful look on Tom’s face, “Silly, right?”

“What? No! No, I think it’s a great idea! You should talk to Bill about it.” There was an uncomfortable pause as Bill’s name was mentioned.

“You think Bill will be at all interested in helping me when you tell him that your evil girlfriend is taking you away from him?”

Tom sighed with a heavy heart. In amongst all the excitement of planning to live together and move across the world together and looking at all the luxurious Hollywood properties, Tom had been trying to push the Bill issue to the very back of his mind. He knew that his brother would be devastated when he learnt that they wouldn’t be living together for the very first time. What he didn’t know, however, was if Bill would be angry or upset or be quietly passive aggressive. Not knowing exactly how Bill would react was rather unsettling and set Tom very much on edge.

“Croissant?”

Soon, they finished eating and Tom threw down two fifties – a four hundred percent tip – before they headed out to his car. He was very conscious of the fact that it was likely that they had been photographed already and if they hadn’t, it was certain that they would be by the end of the day. But that wasn’t going to stop him or his plans.

They drove over to Emilia’s place to get Alfie and made their way back over to the Tiergarten; a large open park with lush green areas, rivers, and quaint secluded places to chill and be together. It mildly concerned him about what photos might show up in _BILD_ and on Instagram in a few hours but that didn’t stop him from taking Emilia’s hand as they walked through the quiet gardens. Alfie ran around them, sniffing happily at the bushes, and pissing against the trees as he would run off, stop, and look back at Emilia before running off again.

“He’s so loyal to you, I love that.”

“It’s only because he knows I have food,” Emilia laughed, pulling a biscuit out of her pocket and Alfie jumped to catch it in his mouth as she threw it for him, “You know what would be good? A house with a basement. You could turn it into a huge studio and rehearsal space, have it all there in one place!”

“Fuck, that would be incredible,” Tom said wistfully, “have I told you that you look beautiful, today?” She really did, as usual in a pair of combat skinny jeans, a black crop top that showed off just a little of her soft, tanned stomach and, of course, a pair of black heels that made her round ass stick out even more.

“Yes, but I won’t object to hearing it again.”

As they walked through the park holding hands, Tom wasn’t sure if he was imagining the double takes or not. He wasn’t as recognisable as Bill was of course but with their faces having been plastered across newspapers and magazines since their album was released the week before as well as numerous television interviews, Tom was positive that there were definitely not only people who absolutely knew who he was but also people who were probably going to be taking photos and videos to post on Instagram and send to _BILD_ for tomorrow’s issue. But he found himself caring less and less as they walked together along the River Spree, watching as Alfie stared out over the water, as if knowing very well that it was a stupid idea but desperately wanting to jump in anyway.

Alfie found and became rather fascinated by one of the large, overgrown trees, running around it and yapping up at it. The area around the tree was pretty much deserted so Tom and Emilia took his lead and sat beneath it, taking the opportunity to take out Tom’s iPad and look back on the property website they had browsed briefly the night before.

“Hey, look at that one,” Emilia pointed at one and Tom brought it up. It was a three-story house, not quite a mansion, in West Hollywood, not far from where Bill and Tom’s current house was.

“It’s kinda out of the way. Well, as out of the way as a house can be in Hollywood, I guess. That’s good though, you don’t want to have a load of neighbours. They’re all stuck up cunts out there.”

“Oh wow, don’t sell it too hard or anything.” Emilia smirked.

“You just have to choose your friends carefully in L.A., that’s all. It’s cool though, I have some great friends out there. I can’t wait for you to meet everybody.”

“I really like this one, it looks perfect. Look it’s got a basement and a pool.”

“Shall I set up a viewing? We could go at the end of April when the European tour ends?”

It really did look perfect for them. It was about two miles from Bill and Tom’s current house so was still close to their friends, the shops and nightclubs as well as being far enough away from the likes of Alex Claster and where the paparazzi might expect them to be. Just as Emilia had said, the basement covered the whole space of the house and so would be the perfect place to set up the extensive recording studio of Tom’s dreams with enough room for an adjoining rehearsal space.

“Fuck, look at that kitchen!” Emilia gasped.

“Aren’t you planning to go on an L.A. diet?” Tom had intended it to come out light heartedly but there was an unfamiliar, uncomfortable pause, “I-I wasn’t-”

“Weren’t you?”

“What?”

 “C’mon, I’m not stupid and neither are you. I saw you today, looking at everyone with a phone in their hand. You’re wondering what people are going to say when they find out you’re dating a fat girl.” Tom felt stung as she spoke, his shoulder jerking back as if she’d pushed him. In the short few weeks that they had been together, she had never spoken deprecatingly about herself in anything but a joking manner. Not that she was being accusatory, but somehow that made it worse. Her tone was so matter of fact.

“I was looking at everyone with a phone in their hand because I’m worried about how you would feel about being exposed in the media. My fans aren’t exactly the most rational of people, especially when it comes to relationships. I’m worried what kind of fucked up abuse is going to be slung at you. And yes, if you want me to be honest, it will be directed at your weight,” Tom’s chest clenched as he saw that now it was her turn to be stung so he squeezed her hand between both of his and looked her straight in the eye, “but this is the thing, trolls will launch on anything they can. They’re sick, ok? Do you know how many racist comments I read about Ria? They will abuse anything they can find. So yeah, I worry about what they’ll say about you and how you will feel about it.”

After he finished speaking, there was a long pause as they sat together on the long grass, their fingers still entwined. Alfie must have sensed the tension because he stopped running around in a circle and crawled into Emilia’s lap, looking up at her with his wide eyes.

“Do…do you think I’m attractive?” Tom snapped his head over to Emilia as she spoke but her concentration was very much fixed on the puppy in her lap. She had always been so confident about herself in front of him that it was rather jarring to see her displaying a lack of it.

“Are you kidding?” He leaned over to rest his chin on her shoulder, “You’re so fucking beautiful. Beautiful and sexy with that round ass and those thick thighs and huge-” She cut him off with a kiss.

“How can I doubt you when you look so pathetically adorable?” They both laughed and Tom cradled her face as he kissed her deeply, interrupted only when Alfie started barking up at them, a playful grin across his face.

“Don’t doubt me again. I get paranoid and I worry. That’s just what I do, you know?” He stole another quick kiss, running a hand through her long hair, “Our fans are crazy and I will protect you from that, I promise.”

With Alfie getting increasingly restless, Tom and Emilia soon got up and wandered around the park aimlessly in the cool March sun. They grabbed a coffee from a stand, ice cream from another and soon found that they had walked right around and had circled back to the Potsdamer Platz where Tom had parked his sleek black Audi. Despite their relaxed display, Tom could clearly feel the change in atmosphere; there was a tension that hadn’t been there before and as they drove back to Emilia’s apartment, they didn’t speak. He wondered briefly if she was hung up on him bringing up her weight but he dismissed that thought. No, it was something else.

When they arrived, they went inside silently, closing the door behind them. Tom walked awkwardly through the apartment and sat on the sofa, picking Alfie up and letting him settle in his arms.

“Do you want a drink?” Emilia asked as Tom watched her potter around in the kitchen, pouring herself a large glass of Pinot Noir.

“No, I’m driving to the restaurant later, remember?”

“Yeah…about that,” She put down the wine bottle perhaps a little more forcefully than was really needed and brought her glass over to the sofa, sitting beside him, “we need to talk…I have to tell you something and I don’t think you’ll want to go out to dinner with me after I do.”

Tom’s heart sank.

“Are you breaking up with me because of what I said earlier? I didn’t _mean_ it like that! I was just trying to prepare you! I was just-”

“Tom!” She raised her voice as she interrupted his ramblings, “I’m not breaking up with you. But what you were saying earlier about your fans and the press…if and when our relationship is exposed and they know who I am, they’re going to start researching me, aren’t they?” Tom frowned, putting Alfie down on the floor. He must have sensed the atmosphere because he soon scampered off into Emilia’s bedroom.

“Oh, babe, you don’t need to worry about Sofie being harassed, I’m not that famous…” He trailed off as she shook her head impatiently.

“No, it’s not that,” Emilia sighed deeply, “I need to tell you what happened after my parents died.”

“Are you sure?” Tom mentally cursed himself for his shaky voice but she forced a smile and nodded.

“When my parents died, I was sixteen and Sofie was only ten. My parents left us everything but they didn’t have fuck all to leave us. I was given five hundred euros and three months’ rent paid on our home.” Tom took her hand, swallowing hard as she spoke.

“Em, I-”

“We lived with our Aunt for a few weeks but she was a single mother with four of her own kids and she wanted to put Sofie in care; she wanted to send her to live with a foster family. I _couldn’t_ let that happen so I took that five hundred euros and sneaked out of the house with Sofie in the middle of the night,” Tom watched as Emilia paused, scratching her neck awkwardly, nervously, “I told her that we were going on an adventure,” she laughed but it wasn’t a joyful laugh, “she was so scared that she wouldn’t leave so I wrapped my jacket around her and carried her to the train station. I was so scared that our Aunt would wake up and notice we were gone that I booked the first train out of Germany.” She paused for a moment to gather herself, her eye avoiding Tom’s.

“Where did you go?” He asked softly, still holding her hand in his.

“Barcelona. My stomach was in knots throughout the whole journey, something just told me that this was a bad idea, you know? But I tried to justify it, telling myself that I’d learnt a lot of Spanish in school and Sofie would love the warm weather…but when we got there the next day, I spent the whole day wandering around, trying to find some place that I could rent for the three hundred and fifty Euros I had left in my purse,” Emilia turned to Tom, her eyes staring down at the floor as her voice turned thick, “She was so confused when we had to go back to the fucking train station and sleep in the café.” With his heart heavy in his chest, Tom drew her into him, holding her against his chest as he kissed the top of her head.

“I’m sorry…that must have been horrible.”

“We found a place the next day,” She sniffed, looking up at him, “Found an old woman who agreed to rent it to us for a hundred euros a week. I don’t think she realised that she was really under charging us,” She smirked, chuckling to herself at the memory, “Anyway. After a few weeks of living on bread and cheese pretty much, I _finally_ got a job at Ralph Lauren. They were opening a new store and hadn’t really advertised for staff so they were desperate for staff as soon as possible and I got lucky.” Tom wanted to say something as Emilia stopped to finish off her glass of wine in one long gulp, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Do you want another glass?”

“Could you just bring over the bottle?”

“Sure.” Reluctantly, Tom let go of Emilia’s hand and grabbed the bottle of wine from the kitchen, bringing it back over and pouring her out another glass.

“Thanks,” She drank half of the glass back, “So, things were going well. I worked thirty hours a week, paid the rent on time every week and treated Sofie to chocolate and pizza. I enrolled her at the local school and she started picking up some Spanish. We didn’t hear from our Aunt so I started to relax and actually be happy for the first time since…well, you know.” As she brought her glass to her lips to take another drink, Tom took a deep breath.

“Are you ok?” She squeezed his hand and nodded resolutely.

“After like a year and a half, my boss called me into his office and asked me if I had a high school diploma. So, I told him I didn’t because I left Germany and school when I was only sixteen and he said that it was company policy not to hire anyone who doesn’t have a diploma and he was going to have to let me go.” Emilia squeezed her eyes shut tight and took a long, deep breath, “I _begged_ him to let me keep my job. Told him how I was fully trained on every aspect but he didn’t want to know, even when I burst out crying.” Tom could only watch as she blinked back tears and he could feel fire in his gut as his anger built.

“What a fucking cunt,” He grunted and Emilia scoffed.

“You have no idea,” She shook her head, “He let me cry for a few minutes until I wiped them away and stood up, going to leave when he stopped me.”

“What did he do?” Tom asked through gritted teeth as she agonisingly paused again to drink the rest of her glass.

“He said I could keep my job if I fucked him.”


	13. Good Men

“You fucked your boss?” To say that Tom was shocked would be an understatement. He was completely and utterly bewildered, he barely knew what to say, how to express how dumbfounded he was. This wasn’t Emilia. This wasn’t his sweet, kind, funny girl. She was a strong woman who looked after her sister when she was just a kid herself; she built up a life for herself in the worst of circumstances. She was not the kind of woman who got ahead by having sex. She would never give in to a man who made those kinds of disgusting demands on her.

“I didn’t have a choice.” Emilia murmured quietly, helplessly but that only made Tom even more exasperated.

“What do you mean you didn’t have a choice?” Tom cried out, “Why didn’t you tell him to go fuck himself and go get yourself another job?” While she sat, he was on his feet now, drinking back from the bottle of wine he had brought over initially to comfort her.

“You don’t understand,” She was forcing her voice to be calm but it was still dark, steely, “I was eighteen, didn’t have a high school diploma and needed a full-time job in Barcelona when I was only just coming to grips with speaking Spanish properly. It would have been nigh on impossible to get another job. I knew that and he certainly did.” Tom didn’t reply but his face softened slightly as he sat back down beside her, begrudgingly taking her hand back in his, “He told me to stay behind after my next shift and I spent the next few days fucking terrified.” For the first time, her voice broke and Tom felt his heart start to splinter along with it. He poured her another glass of wine and thrust it into her hand.

“You don’t have to-”

“So, I went to his office after my shift and he just bent me over and…” She trailed off, swallowing hard, “I was a _virgin_!” All Tom could do was gather her in his arms and hold her tight as she burst into tears. She clung to his bomber jacket and buried her fact in his chest as she sobbed, all the emotions are her story coming to the front; it was as if the flood gates had well and truly been opened. So, Tom let her cry. He kissed the top of her head and rubbed her back gently, trying to reassure her, to let her know that he was there for her now. That she had nothing to be afraid of with him. He had absolutely no idea how to express that though.

So, he just held her.

“I’m so-”

“Please don’t say you’re sorry,” Emilia sniffed as Tom stroked her hair, “You have been nothing but amazing to me. You don’t know how much it means to me to _finally_ have someone in my life who really cares about me. Who actually wants to be with me.”

“Was he-”

“He’s the only one I’ve ever…yeah. In between that and looking after Sofie, I guess I didn’t really want to,” She shrugged, looking up at Tom with red eyes. He wiped the few tears that lingered on her cheeks with the pads of his calloused fingers, kissing her lips tenderly, relieved when she returned it.

“Are you ok?” She nodded but he didn’t believe her.

“It went on for nearly two years until I _finally_ got another job, as a supervisor in Prada in Madrid. I was so fucking relieved that I didn’t even tell him that I was leaving. I got the call and just packed up Sofie and we flew to Madrid. A few years later, my manager told me about a manager position that was going at the new store in Berlin which, obviously, I fucking jumped at. So, yeah, we moved up here and I stopped thinking about that asshole.” She took a deep breath but didn’t wait for Tom to pour her a glass of wine. Instead, she grabbed the bottle and drained it. It sounded like a happy ending to her story but it didn’t _feel_ like that.

“There’s…there’s more. Isn’t there?” Tom’s heart started hammering as she nodded, “What is it?” Fresh tears glistened in her eyes and he took her hand in both of his and brought it to his lips, “You can tell me.”

“Please don’t hate me,” She whispered, bringing her hand to his cheek. He closed his eyes indulgently for a moment.

“Em, tell me. Please.”

“He’s my boss. He’s the Berlin regional manager for Prada now and I-” She choked on her tears as she struggled to get the last part out, but she needn’t have bothered, Tom knew what was coming.

“You’ve slept with him, haven’t you?”

“Not since being with you, I swear. Only once, last September.”

“You know what?” Tom’s soft, sympathetic tone totally changed as he jumped up, “We haven’t eaten.” Emilia spun around, standing up herself as he marched over to the kitchen, opening the fridge.

“What? Tom-”

“I haven’t fed you. Shall I order takeout?” He called out as he opened and slammed shut each of the kitchen cupboards.

“Tom, I don’t want-” Emilia went over to the kitchen and reached out to grab his arm but Tom jerked it away.

“You know what? I’m gonna go pick up a pizza. I’ll get the triple cheese one, yeah?”

“Tom!” Emilia cried out, grabbing Tom’s wrist as he went to slip on his sneakers. He stopped and turned slightly.

“I’m going to get food.” His tone was soft, but resolute. She let go of his wrist and could only watch as he pulled on his shoes, grabbed his keys, and left.

Tom’s heart was pounding. It was racing and he didn’t know what to do.

_“Did she roll over?”_

“What?”

_“Did she roll over and crush you? Are you calling from hospital?”_

“Suck my cock,” Tom bit out as he all but fell into his car.

_“And you wonder why everyone writes that fanfiction about us.”_

“Fuck off.”

 _“Hey, what going on?”_ It was with Bill’s question that Tom’s legs gave way and he all but fell onto the sofa.

“She’s not who I thought she was.” Tom choked out, holding his head in his hand.

_“What? What are you talking about?”_

“She’s a totally different person to me now. I don’t want to feel this way, I _don’t_ but I thought she was different. I thought she was simple, uncomplicated, and honest. But she just a fucking slut!”

_“Woah, woah, wait. What the fuck do you mean she’s a slut?”_

“What do you mean, what do I mean!”

 _“Well, who is she slutting it up with? Eighteen-year-old zit faced virgins?”_ Tom knew that Bill was only trying to lighten the mood but damn, it really wasn’t helping.

“Bill, please.”

_“What’s happened? Has she slept with someone else?”_

And so, Tom relayed the story to Bill, who thankfully kept silent throughout. How he managed to keep his voice steady and didn’t burst into tears was anyone’s guess but Tom was grateful for small mercies at that point. Retelling the story to his brother made what Emilia told him finally sink in which only made him feel worse. In fact, he felt like he was going to be sick.

“I mean, how could she _do_ that? Why would she do that?”

_“Wait, wait, wait. Calm down for a moment.”_

“Calm down? _Calm down_? I can’t fucking calm down! I-”

_“Where are you? Are you at her place?”_

“Yeah, I’m in the carpark.”

 _“Ok, I want you to take some deep breaths, ok?”_ Tom nodded, oblivious to the fact that Bill couldn’t see him and did as he was told, _“Right, where does she live?”_ Tom gave him the address, _“Stay exactly where you are, I’ll be there in ten minutes, ok? I’m not far away. Just calm down, try to distract yourself.”_

When he hung up the phone, Tom tried to take Bill’s advice and pulled up a game on his phone. Tom had always had anxiety issues. Most people saw Bill as being the one who was more emotional but that wasn’t true, he was simply more open with his emotions on a public stage than he was. Tom preferred to keep his emotions hidden; he couldn’t think of anything worse than displaying all his thoughts, feelings, and emotions on social media. It made him physically sick when TMZ leaked details of his divorce.

It felt like a clear decade had passed before Bill finally pulled up beside him in his matching Audi and jumped into his car. He didn’t say anything, just took Tom hand, and held it tight.

“So today I woke up around midday and took a quick drive to Starbucks. Not the one around the corner, but that big one, you know, the one that does all the pastries? So, I got a skinny salted caramel cappuccino with an extra shot because I was feeling wild and I was going to get some cheesecake but fuck, what if my outfits don’t fit? I mean, I know it’s only one slice but did you know they’re seven hundred calories? I just can’t afford that right now. So, I went home and had a tomato salad and I put those pomegranate seeds on top which are _so_ cute!”

Yes, it was quite possibly the most boring story that Tom had ever heard and probably the most boring one that Bill had ever told. But when Tom’s breath was heavy and his head was swimming and he was overwhelmed with panic, the very best thing that anyone could do for him was hold his hand and tell him a very tedious story about their day. It ensured that, mentally, he stayed in the here-and-now and didn’t fall into that abyss of solid panic.

Finally, Tom lifted his head that he had been resting on the steering wheel. It felt like lead, so heavy and he was still breathing deeply but his breaths were steadier and measured now.

“Ok?” Bill asked softly, his hand on Tom’s back now.

“Yeah…yeah.”

“Good. Now, tell me that you didn’t call her a slut.”

“What?” Tom snapped his head up to look at Bill as though he was simple, “Of course I didn’t! She told me about…last year,” he grimaced, “and I ran out, said something about getting a pizza.”

“Ok, ok, good,” Bill nodded, “I mean, you’re a dick but at least you just freaked out and didn’t say something stupid.”

“I wanted to. I _really_ wanted to. I just don’t understand why she did it!”

“Tom, I don’t think she really had a choice! She was a young girl in the middle of a very competitive city without even a high school diploma and a kid to look after. It sounds like if she had turned him down, she’d have been fired, forced to go back to her Aunt and then her sister probably would have been forced into social services.”

“It’s not that!” Tom cried, smacking the steering wheel in frustration, “I _get_ that part. I hate it, it disgusts me but I understand why she did it! What I don’t understand is why last year? She didn’t need to do it! Yeah, he’s her boss, but he didn’t have any leverage over her! He couldn’t have fired her! She’s not a silly little naïve girl on a piss poor wage trying to feed her sister!” Tom was getting increasingly agitated and he couldn’t sit still. Frantic, he pushed open the car door and jumped out. He dug a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and quickly lit one up.

“So, what are you saying?” Bill slammed his door shut as he jumped out of the car too, “What, do you think she _wanted_ it? That she wanted him?” Tom scoffed and shrugged his shoulders as he took a long, soothing drag.

“That’s what it sounds like, isn’t it?” Tom paced back and forth as he smoked, running a hand through his hair in complete irritation and confusion.

“No!” Bill cried, shaking his head, frustrated, “No, you’re looking at this all wrong!”

“How? How am I? It seems perfectly straightforward to me!”

“You think this guy showed up at the store as her boss, propositioned her and then she went home and thought carefully and rationally about it for a few days before she went back and said ‘please Mr Boss-man-who-took-advantage-of-me-and-fucked-me-against-my-will, please bend me over and take me now! I just can’t resist you!’ Don’t be so fucking ridiculous!” Tom gritted his teeth as Bill spoke. His tone was so horribly mocking that it stung almost painfully.

“Ok then you fucking know-it-all, what the fuck did happen, then?”

“Well, my guess would be that she probably turned up for work one day and got the shock of her life when he introduced himself as her new boss. He probably saw his chance, invited her into his office and propositioned her. She would have been scared, Tom! This is real life, it’s not like the movies where everyone is thinking straight and knows the exact witty line to say. She would have been terrified and probably regressed back to being that young, desperate girl who saw him as a powerful authority figure. And you know what? I bet she thought about it rationally the next day, realised that he didn’t have any power over her and probably felt dirty and you know what hasn’t helped? _You_ running out! So, you better pull yourself together and get back up to that fucking apartment, _right now_!”

Tom wanted to protest. He wanted to tell Bill that he was wrong, that he was stupid and that he didn’t know what he was talking about. But he wasn’t wrong, he wasn’t stupid and he absolutely knew what he was talking about. When you had Bill Kaulitz standing before you with a frown on his face and hands on his hips, you did what he said. So, with a heavy heart, Tom nodded and locked his car, pausing only to give his brother a hug before heading back into the apartment block.

He ran up the few flights of stairs and when he came to the door, he contemplated knocking but chose to go right on in. He crept inside, not wanting to startle her. He knew that he had been gone just over an hour now so he wasn’t at all surprised to see her passed out on the sofa with an empty bottle of wine on the floor and Alfie dozing beside her.

Sighing, he picked up the bottle of wine, putting it on the coffee table as he knelt before her. With the back of his hand, Tom tenderly stroked her cheek.

“Tom…I thought you’d left me,” She whispered, reaching out to touch him arm, as if to reassure herself that he was really there, that he had come back.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left,” Tom murmured, stroking his hand over her hair, “I’ve only ever wanted to be a good person. I only want to be a good man for you. You know that, don’t you?” Emilia’s eyelids were heavy and he could tell that she could barely keep them open but he knew that she was listening.

“You aren’t mad at me?” Her words were lazy and slurred.

“No,” Tom smiled softly, almost weakly, “But I do think you should get into bed.” But she shook her head, groaning.

“No! No, it’s really early! It’s not bedtime, that’s silly.” She wasn’t wrong, it was only seven in the evening but since she was barely able to stay conscious, Tom helped her to sit up and eventually stand. He lay her down in her bed and pulled the thick duvet over her.

“Do you want anything?” He smoothed her hair back from her forehead, stroking her hair comfortingly.

“Will you get in with me?” She reached out for him like a dependent child and he couldn’t deny her so he pulled back the duvet and slid in beside her, rolling on his side to gather her in his arms. They took a second to told each other in the perfect silence of the moment. Tom felt perfect contentment in his heart as she nestled into his chest, her hands clinging to his shirt.

“Tom?”

“Hmm?”

“I lo…” Emilia trailed off as she fell asleep.


	14. The Road to London

Tom was stressed. His heart was racing. Legs were shaking. Stomach was jumping. He was running on auto pilot but had never employed so much concentration. His head was banging and he was utterly dripping with sweat. If it was up to him, he would have run off the stage and collapsed on the nearest sofa. He was exhausted.

But when Tom looked up to see a girl with shocking pink hair in the front row looking at him with tears in her eyes and a hand on her heart, he found the strength to pound on his guitar with renewed vigour. It was incredible what blind adoration could do for you.

Nevertheless, Tom was still relieved when it was time for _Black_ and he could sit on a stool with his acoustic guitar. Inevitably, Bill was nearly drowned out by everyone there singing _Schwarz_ and although Tom knew that that would piss off Bill something rotten, he felt a kind of pride swell inside him. They wrote that song nearly fifteen years earlier, it had never been released as a single and they hadn’t performed it live in eleven years but _still_ people knew every word perfectly.

One couldn’t fail to feel humbled.

_“When life was easy…we smoked weed in the back seat of your car and watched the stars.”_

As Tom stood, the acoustic set finished, Bill sang the first line from _Easy_ and he had a small mental chuckle to himself. He had proposed the line as:

_When life was easy…I made love in the back seat of your car as you watched the stars._

It was a far darker lyric, implying the passive, uncaring attitude of a partner the singer loved so much. Bill had been uncomfortable with the line, unwilling to illustrate how his devoted love had never truly been reciprocated. Yes, the sentiment may have been portrayed in brutally matter-of-fact language in his EP but there was no way Bill could publicly admit that their sex life had also been completely one sided.

As was so often the case, the public rehearsal in Berlin was soon over and they all ran, relieved, backstage.

“Water. I need water.”

“Someone get me some green tea!”

“Lucozade! Now!”

“Line of coke for me, please!”

They weren’t actually talking to anyone. On past tours, they had a vast team of staff willing to cater to their every need. Tom hadn’t realised just what a pivotal part of their lives all their staff had been until they weren’t there anymore. Not through lack of want but rather a lack of funds. As soon as their number ones dried up, so did their money. _Kings of Suburbia_ was their first album not to go to number one in Germany and while none of them cared about chart positions, they certainly helped when it came to the money side of things. Bill and Tom could only afford a personal assistant between them. Well, she was Bill’s assistant really but she fancied Tom something rotten so was more than happy to fetch him a drink or a sandwich when she was around; in fact, when helping Bill put on his platform boots, she had been known to insist on even doing up the laces on Tom’s sneakers at the same time.

Georg and Gustav had been smart with the money they had earnt during their early, vastly commercially successful years. In 2008, Georg had heard a whisper that a rundown neighbourhood in Munich was going to be the subject of intense regeneration and investment from private developers to turn it into a trendy (and expensive) district. So, he took a gamble and bought a neglected block of ten apartments for a knocked down price. His gamble paid off and within eighteen months, he was pulling in rent that was three times the mortgage price. And so, he made more and more contacts in the property industry and repeated his good fortune in Hamburg, Cologne, and Dortmund.

Gustav, on the other hand, invested in small businesses. Tom particularly enjoyed the bakery chain he had invested in. It specialised in experimental flavours like a vanilla cupcake with dark chocolate icing and crumbled pieces of salt and vinegar crisps and a cheesecake with a Cheetos base topped with banana slices.

Bill and Tom, however, had wasted their money on a ridiculously expensive L.A. mansion, too many cars and bikes for Tom and an outrageous wardrobe for Bill. They certainly didn’t have room to complain about money but they were very much asset rich and (relatively) cash poor. Tom couldn’t wait to sell his equity in their property and downsize with Emilia. Maybe he could invest in property or something; having a decent amount of money in his bank account would be a novelty.

_I’m sorry I fucked up last night. I hope the show went well xxx_

_You didn’t, don’t worry. It was exhausting but good xxx_

Emilia hadn’t fucked up but Tom had spent the night in bed with her with his mind in complete overdrive, unable to sleep. Of course, Tom had thought about him. That nameless, faceless man who had blackmailed a naïve, desperate girl just so he could get his dick wet. Tom had pictured two men. One was short, fat, old, hairy…basically Danny de Vito. The other was tall, dark and handsome with perfectly plucked eyebrows and wearing a smart, fitted designer suit. He wasn’t sure which was better. Whether it was better that it was a man who she found physically attractive or not.

But then he felt like a complete and utter jackass for thinking that what the cunt looked like would make any kind of difference. As if it changed how morally repulsive and just plain sick the man was. Tom wasn’t an idiot. He was perfectly aware that it wasn’t about sex. It was about power.

Tom couldn’t help but wonder why this was happening again to someone he cared so deeply about.

He realised that he was wrong, Emilia had fucked up but not in the way that she thought.

She had started to say it. She was going to say it. She _felt_ it. But, of course, she had passed out before she could get the words out.

Did he love her? He wasn’t sure. Did he want to love her? Yes, in time. Did his heart nearly burst out of his chest when he heard her start to utter the words? Absolutely.

“When’s the bus coming?” Gustav asked as he played on his phone, undoubtedly messaging his wife.

“Bus?” Bill asked, confused.

“Yeah, the tour bus, when is it picking us up?”

“About ten tonight. Drink?” Tom offered, pulling a bottle of whisky out of his bag.

“We’re getting the _bus_ to London? Why didn’t you tell me?” Bill exclaimed, horror on his face.

“I thought it was obvious. What would be the point in hiring two tour buses if we didn’t intend on using them?” Tom and Bill both looked at each other as if they were stupid.

“To transport our luggage and all of the equipment and _maybe_ when we’re just flitting between cities. We’re getting the _bus_ from Berlin to London? Are you insane?”

“Shut up, Princess. If you want to go get a plane and doze in an airport for hours, be my guest. But I’m going to sleep for a solid ten hours on the bus.” Tom unscrewed the whisky bottle and took a quick drink before passing it to Georg, “How’s Meg doing?” Georg took the bottle, taking a drink for himself.

“She’s good,” He nodded, “We’re having the first scan during the Easter break.”

“Is she still craving those weird sweet and salty combos?” Gustav asked, “Because _Arrowbells_ just brought out a vanilla and soy sauce swirled ice cream, I could have some sent over to her?”

“That sounds fucking disgusting. I’m sure she’ll love it, send her three tubs.”

_I can’t wait to see you when you’re back in Berlin xxx_

_Me neither. I’ll call you when we’re on our way to London. About eleven? Xxx_

_Can’t wait xxx_

It wasn’t long before the tour buses pulled up outside and Bill reluctantly snatched his bag to follow the rest of them outside. The twins bid goodnight to the Gs as they got on their separate buses.

“Which bed do you want?”

“The one at the back above the cupboard. You should have the one at the front that’s on the floor. I have more to cushion me if the bus makes a sharp turn.”

“Ah yeah, they have a lot of roundabouts in Britain, don’t they?” With matching exhausted sighs, Bill and Tom sat opposite each other at the small table towards the back of the bus. As was customary, Tom pulled a pack of cards out of his bag along with his wallet and started to shuffle.

“Blackjack?”

“Sure.”

“I’m dealer. Starting bet of ten euros. No limit.”

“Shouldn’t we play for British money, since we’re going to London?” Bill asked.

“Tell you what, I’ll give you a hundred _British money_ right now if you tell me what their currency is called.” Tom smirked, dealing the first hand while Bill looked at him, rolling his eyes.

“How stupid do you think I am? Kings!”

“Kings?”

“Yeah. Duh. Their money is named after their King.”

“Ok, first of all, they have a _Queen_ , not a King. Second, what, do you think they go into a bar and buy a beer for 5 Kings?” Tom shook his head, his smirk growing, “They use the pound, dumbass.”

“The _pound_?” Bill laughed, “So prostitutes charge a _pound_ for a hard _pound_? That’s hilarious.”

“That is not funny and you’re a fucking moron. Now, place your bet.”

Every night before and after a show, Bill and Tom would play cards for an hour or two to relax their minds, unwind and make some money off each other.

“Hit me.”

“You have nineteen. I have a three.”

“Hit me.”

“Four. I win.”

“Damn. What are the odds?”

“I swear that sometimes you act dumb on purpose.”

The bus started moving and after a few minutes, sped up as it got onto the Autobahn. Tom looked up and knew that both of them could feel their hearts racing in their chests as they started to make their way to the first concert of the tour. They were seasoned performers, had been on stage since before either of them had had their first erection, it was nothing new to either of them. But this was the first time that they would be showcasing a piece of work that had been completely and entirely created by them. Tom was the sole producer; the two of them the sole songwriters. It was their first album that David Jost hadn’t been involved with and that was nerve wracking beyond belief. In the past, if the fans or the media criticised their work, they could convince themselves that others were to blame. That Jost was to blame.

They couldn’t do that anymore. If the show bombed then the only people they had to blame was themselves. Being so exposed was scary. Tom felt it especially. He didn’t want to let the fans down. He didn’t want to let his friends down. He was hoping that the first show would assuage his fears.

“It’s going to be a tough first show.” It was as if Bill could read his mind and was feeling as pessimistic as he was.

“Remind me why we do London first? No, actually, remind me why we do London at all? At the VIPs last time, I swear not one of them had a British accent.”

“Well there’s a lot of Europeans over there,” Bill shrugged as he lost another twenty, “And apparently a lot of them like us. _Well_ , they like me because I’m sexy as fuck.”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.”

“Ok, well, I’ve lost nearly two hundred so I’m out.” Bill pushed his cards away like a petulant child and went to stand up.

“Wait,” Tom stopped him, pulling out a sandwich from his bag, “Just…eat it in bed or something, ok?” Bill accepted it and nodded, clearly unwilling to start another argument.

“Thank you. Goodnight.”

“’Night.”

Bill peeled off his shirt and got into his bunkbed, clutching his phone and iPad, pulling the curtain closed. Tom shrugged off his own shirt and went over to the small kitchen area, grabbing a big bag of paprika flavoured crisps and a tub of Nutella. Gustav’s penchant for creative food combinations was definitely rubbing off on him. He threw his snacks and phone up into his bunk and climbed up, sighing as he settled on top of the duvet.

_“Hey, you.”_

“Hey there, beautiful. How are you?”

_“Tired. And kind of embarrassed. I was such a mess, it’s so not how I wanted to spend our last night together.”_

“Don’t,” Tom sat up with a frown, “don’t you speak like that. All you did was have a drink and pass out, no big deal. I’ve done a hell of a lot worse, believe me.”

_“I don’t…I don’t really remember what happened. Are you angry?”_

“Of course I’m fucking angry!” Tom tried his best not to shout down the phone and only partially succeeded, “But not at you. Never at you. That guy is a fucking cock and the _only_ reason I didn’t send someone to his office to send him straight to a hospital bed is because I bought you a business class ticket to L.A. last night.”

 _“Wait. What?”_ Tom smiled at Emilia’s shock.

“I want you to fly out to California tomorrow. You can chill by the pool, eat all the food we left there, fuck yourself in my bed…” He laughed, licking his lips at the thought.

_“Are you serious? Tom, I can’t just leave! I have to give four weeks’ notice at work and Sofie-”_

“Fuck your job. Phone them tomorrow morning and say you’re leaving. As for Sofie, this is no big deal. We were planning to leave in two months anyway. Just think of it as a holiday. You’re still coming to my show with her in Berlin.”

_“Tom, I can’t-”_

“Yes, you can. Em, babe…let me do this. Let me protect you. I can’t stand you working there any longer, _especially_ with me not being there.” He heard her sigh and take a long pause.

_“What time is the flight?”_

“11.50 tomorrow morning from Tegel. Check your mail box, I’ve left you a credit card. Use it to buy groceries, clothes…a new vibrator, I don’t know,” They both laughed and Tom could hear the nervous tone in her voice, “There will be a car to take you to the airport tomorrow morning and another to meet you in L.A. to take you to the house.”

_“Fuck…you really are serious. Tom, we’ve only been together for, what? Five or six weeks? I want this to work out, really, but what if it doesn’t? Then I’m left without a job!”_

“Babe, we were already going to move in together at the end of May. If you change your mind before then, you’ll keep your two hundred grand that you were putting in to buy a place in California.”

_“That money is to buy property, not to live off because I left my job to spend time in the sun.”_

“Look, Bill has a lot of friends in fashion. If you change your mind – because I definitely won’t – then I _promise_ that I will get you a job paying double what you’re getting right now.”

 _“You’re ridiculous,”_ Emilia laughed, making Tom smile triumphantly, _“Ok, ok, you’ve twisted my arm, I’ll go. Fuck, you really left me your credit card?”_

“I did. I’ll text you the PIN number. Now that I’ve convinced you…you mind if I ask you something?”

_“Shoot.”_

“You told me that your parents didn’t leave you much, so…where did you get that two hundred grand?” There was a pause and Tom swallowed hard as he feared offending her, “I didn’t-”

 _“Why do you think he only fucked me once since becoming my boss?”_ Emilia’s matter-of-fact tone was jarring and took Tom by surprise.

“Well, I…uh-”

 _“I realised that he took advantage of me. That I wasn’t a stupid, desperate kid anymore and I threatened to take him to court. He paid me two hundred grand to keep me quiet.”_ Tom closed his eyes, taking a long, deep breath.

“I’m-”

_“That’s why I want to use it on something good, you know? Something for me. For us.”_

“I-”

_“I love you, Tom.”_

Tom swore as he fell out of bed. He spent a second feeling sorry for himself, rubbing his ass before grappling for his phone.

“Em? Em!”

_“Did you just throw your fucking phone across the room?”_

“What? No! I just fell out of bed.”

_“What?”_

“The bus did a sharp turn and I fell out of bed. I landed on my fucking ass.” Tom scowled, feeling immeasurably sorry for himself as he lay on the floor rather pathetically, not bothering to get up.

_“It’s a good thing you’ve got such a phat-”_

“I love you too, Em.”


	15. Tom Kaulitz Dates BBW?

It was the middle of the night and the tour bus had made a stop at a petrol station somewhere in northern Belgium. Tom had only been dozing and so he awoke easily as the bus pulled up. He quickly jumped off the bus, breathing the cool night air in deeply as he stretched. Sitting on a nearby bench, he lit up a cigarette as he saw the other tour bus pull up behind his own and Georg all but fall out of it. He trudged over to Tom and sat beside him, not bothering to stifle a long yawn as he smiled sleepily yet contently when Tom passed him a cigarette and lit it for him.

“You legend.”

Tom couldn’t remember the last time that he had been in a place that was so quiet with the air so cold and the world seemingly so calm. He felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He felt safe in the knowledge that this time tomorrow, Emilia would be in California, sleeping in his King size bed away from the troubles of the world she had left behind her. It warmed his heart to know that he could take her away from that cunt and make her safe.

“Emilia told me she loves me.” He said it softly, with a small smile as he took a long drag.

“Wow. Did you say it back?”

“Yes.”

“Did you mean it?”

“Yes,” Tom answered with a small, proud grin, “I never thought I would be able to truthfully say it again to someone else, you know? I feel like I’m living a dream, it’s crazy.” Georg grinned, clapping him on the back.

“I’m happy for you, man. It seems like it’s all falling into place, doesn’t it?” Georg pulled out his phone and brought up a selfie of Meg, holding up her shirt to show off her stomach, “She’s convinced she can see a bump already. Personally I think it’s just all the crisps dipped in melted chocolate.” Georg laughed while Tom smirked.

“I hope you bought her a big enough supply.”

“Oh, of course. My life wouldn’t be worth living if I hadn’t.” He chuckled, “Though she would kill me if she knew I was smoking,” Georg spoke after a brief pause.

“I’m surprised she didn’t forbid you from going on tour.” Of course, it was no secret that Georg’s girlfriend had him very much under her thumb. From the reasonable request of telling him that he couldn’t smoke since she fell pregnant, to the ridiculous demand that Georg should only wear plain black or white socks.

“Don’t start all that again, you know she means well. This pregnancy thing has really been weighing down on her.” Georg paused for a moment to finish off his cigarette and flick it into the nearby bin, “I thought getting pregnant would make her happy but she’s just terrified she’s going to lose it. I want to be at any scan so badly but she’s so anxious that I’m thinking about just booking her in for an early one just to put her mind at ease, you know?”

“That’s probably a good idea. Why don’t you book a scan for the day after the Berlin show? We have a free day before Stockholm, remember.”

“That’s a good idea, actually.” They lit up another cigarette and relaxed back into the wooden bench.

“There’s something else.”

“Something else?” Georg asked, coughing as he smoked.

“Yeah…I’m selling my half of the house and buying a place with Em.”

“Woah, wait. Without Bill?”

“Yeah. And if you tell him, I’ll rip off your ball sack.” It was a warning made in jest but Georg knew that Tom wasn’t completely joking.

“You guys haven’t even known each other two months yet and you’re buying a place together? You didn’t even buy a place with Ria.”

“Ria didn’t have the means, Emilia does,” Tom shrugged, “I know this is going to last, G. I didn’t think it was possible to feel this way about another woman after Ria. This is it, I know it is.”

Georg knew better than to air his reservations to someone as stubborn and strong willed as Tom, and Tom knew it.

They saw the driver go into the small shop to pay for the petrol and Tom and Georg took that as their cue to go in themselves. Tom headed over to the fridges to grab some drinks, vegetable sushi and sweets while watching Georg wander over to the magazine and newspaper stand. Tom rolled his eyes as he saw him pick up a newspaper and flick through it, reading intensely, with a frown on his face. Undoubtedly, he had found a German paper and was reading a riveting article on his beloved Bayern München.

Having paid, the driver left the store and Tom headed to the till.

“G! Come on, we gotta go.” As Tom called him, Georg looked up.

“Come here, you better read this.” But Tom had already paid and was heading out the door.

“So, buy it and let’s go, c’mon!” Tom urged, earning himself an eyeroll as Georg rushed to pay for it. Tom was nearly back to his bus when Georg came running up behind him and all but shoved the newspaper in his face. Tom was about to protest when he saw a picture of himself kissing Emilia.

 

**TOM KAULITZ DATES BBW?**

**_Kaulitz twin pictured with mystery BBW in Berlin’s Tiergarten. Is this a new love for the divorcee or just a rebound?_ **

_Yesterday, Tokio Hotel guitarist, Tom Kaulitz was pictured in Berlin’s famous Tiergarten with a voluptuous brunette looking very cosy. While the identity of the mystery woman is currently unknown, the couple weren’t shy about displaying their affection for each other._

_Pictured just before Kaulitz left for the start of Tokio Hotel’s much anticipated “Dream Machine” European tour, the apparent couple look very comfortable with each other. The former teen heartthrob couldn’t keep his hands off his new woman, embracing and kissing in full view of the crowds around them. When Tokio Hotel first burst onto the scene, Kaulitz was famous for his playboy lifestyle. However, the intimate nature of these photographs makes it clear that this is not just a casual fling!_

_So, is it serious? As we reported in September last year, Kaulitz has filed for divorce from long term love, Ria Sommerfeld so it wouldn’t be outlandish to suggest that a casual relationship may be just what he’s looking for!_

_But let’s get real, Tom Kaulitz is one of the sexiest men in Germany and we’re sure that if he was looking for something casual then he could find someone a little more appropriate. After all, one of his previous conquests is none other than Ann-Kathrin Brommel, the now-girlfriend of World Cup winner, Mario Götze!_

_Time will tell if this relationship is for real. Let’s wait and see!_

“What the _fuck_ is this?” But Georg had no answer for him.

“You need to call her, let her know. She can’t go into work tomorrow, the media-”

“No,” Tom interrupted, “She’s going to California tomorrow morning.”

“She what?”

“I bought her a ticket.” Tom shrugged and Georg frowned, deciding to let it go for the moment.

“And you think there won’t be paparazzi in the airport? She’s on the _front cover_ of Germany’s biggest newspaper! There will be people _reading_ that article in the airport with her, on the plane! You need to do something, you need to-”

“I’ll sort it,” Tom asserted before throwing open the door to the bus and climbing on.

“But-”

“I’ll sort it!” Tom shouted, slamming the door behind him.

Tom sat at the table, glaring at the article. There were half a dozen photos, all from their walk around the Tiergarten two days earlier. From their intimate moment sitting beneath the large oak tree, Alfie lying in his lap as he held Emilia’s face in his hand while they kissed. He re-read the article, more closely this time and felt himself start to shake with anger.

BBW was fine. He could tolerate BBW. It objectified her and it was slightly patronising but it wasn’t cruel. Hell, he even searched for BBW on Pornhub to try and get his libido going. What made him so angry was the blatant description of her as ‘inappropriate’. The implication wasn’t exactly subtle. Tom pulled out his phone.

 _“Tom? It’s four in the morning, is everything ok?”_ Her voice was heavy and thick with sleep, almost erotic as she groaned at being so rudely awoken.

“Hey baby…listen, I don’t want to freak you out but we just stopped at a service station in Belgium and Georg picked up a copy of today’s Bild,” Tom paused to take a breath.

_“You called to tell me you bought a newspaper?”_

“Kind of. We’re on the front page.”

_“What?”_

“Someone photographed us in the park the other day. They’ve printed pictures of us together…kissing.”

_“Oh fuck. Tom, I-”_

“Hey, hey, it’s ok,” Tom soothed, hearing the rise of panic in her voice, “Listen to me. Have you told Sofie that you’re leaving?”

_“Yeah, I called her last night.”_

“Great. Now, listen to me. Do not contact anyone, ok? Don’t answer any phone calls or reply to any messages, even if you know them. You get straight into the car tomorrow and check in as soon as possible, hear me? Don’t stop for a smoke or a drink or anything. You check in and go through security immediately and then you go _straight_ to the VIP lounge. Don’t speak to anyone who doesn’t work for the airport. Understand?” He was babbling and talking too quickly but he needed to get it all out.

_“Tom, isn’t that a little excessive?”_

“Please, just do what I said, ok? And call me as soon as you take a seat on the plane.”

_“Tom-”_

“Promise me.”

 _“I promise.”_ Tom sighed, relieved, a weight off his shoulders.

“Ok, I have to get back to bed. I’ll speak to you tomorrow. Goodnight, I love you.”

 _“I love you too.”_ Tom was grinning like an idiot as he hung up the phone. He had heard her say those words to him twice now and he felt like he would never get used to it. He turned around when he heard Bill pull the curtain to his bed across and slip out.

“Shit, have we already stopped in Belgium? I wanted to get a drink.” Bill appeared in front of Tom, bleary eyed with messed up hair wearing just a pair of black Calvin Klein’s. Tom grabbed a bottle of cola he had bought and threw it to him, “Thanks. What’s that?”

“Today’s issue of Bild,” Tom muttered, holding it up to show Bill the double page spread of him and Emilia.

“Shit.” Bill sat opposite him and read the article, scanning quickly through it.

“I just called her, telling her about it. Obviously, I didn’t tell her what it said. She acts like she’s so confident when it comes to her weight, but I’m not so convinced. I didn’t want to worry her when I’m not there.”

“Fuck, this is-”

“Disgusting? Sickening? Nauseating?”

“Well…yeah.”

“She’s _inappropriate_ , apparently. Meaning that she’s fat and doesn’t deserve to be fucking me, I guess. Who the fuck do they think they are? Like, she may be smart and kind and fucking beautiful but who cares because she’s _fat_ and that’s all that matters, right?”

“ _Wrong_.”

“Well you certainly think so.” Tom bit out but he instantly regretted his words when he saw the look of hurt on Bill’s face.

“I’m sorry about what I said before, that wasn’t fair. You’re clearly crazy about her.”

“She told me that she loves me when we spoke earlier…I said it too.” Tom wasn’t sure what he was expecting but a beaming grin from his twin wasn’t it, “I bought her a ticket yesterday to California for this morning, she’s going to stay at the house until the concert in Berlin. At least she won’t have any media bothering her at work or knocking on her door.” He looked up to see Bill frowning, confused.

“You bought her a ticket to L.A. before you saw the article? Why?”

“I…I can’t say. It’s nothing to do with me and you. It’s just…” Tom trailed off, unsure what to say, “She told me about something and I’m not comfortable with her being in Berlin without me.”

“Ok, well, have you arranged for a private car to pick her up from her place and take her to the airport?”

“Yes.”

“And have you got her access to the VIP lounge in the airport?”

“Yes.”

“And she’s flying business class?”

“Yes.” Tom affirmed. Bill nodded, satisfied, and went to stand up to go back to bed when he was stopped by the look on Tom’s face, “Is there something else?” Tom closed his eyes with a long, deep sigh and dropped his head, scratching the back of his neck.

“We’re moving in together,” Tom murmured, avoiding Bill’s eye.

“What? Didn’t you think to ask me whether I want to live with her? I mean, she’s nice but I don’t know her well-”

“We aren’t moving in with you.” Tom interrupted.

“ _What_?” Bill’s jaw literally dropped open, aghast.

“I’m sorry,” Tom murmured, “I’m forcing sale of the house and we’re buying our own place together in L.A. when the tour ends.” He looked up to see Bill just staring at him, completely dumb founded.

“Are you serious?” At Tom’s solemn nod, Bill scoffed, jumping to his feet, “You’ve been with her for like a month! A fucking month! And you’re _buying a house with her without me_?” He shouted, tears glazing over his dark eyes. Tom stood up and reached over to grab Bill’s arm but he snatched it away.

“Bill-”

“I thought she was nice but maybe I was wrong, huh?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“She’s a scheming bitch taking you away from me!” Bill cried out, tears rolling down his cheeks and Tom tried again to reach for him, “ _Do not touch me_! Do not confuse my tears for hysterics, ok? I’m emotional but I am still just as _fucking angry_!”

“This was my idea, not hers!” Tom’s voice was thick too, desperate but Bill just dismissed him with a patronising laugh.

“You might think it’s your idea but she put it in your head!”

“No!” Tom insisted, his voice louder now and he forcefully grabbed both of Bill’s wrists, his strength too much for him, “Now, you listen to me!” Realising he wasn’t getting away, Bill clamped his mouth shut, gritting his teeth, “I have never lived without you. It’s not that I don’t like living with you but I am twenty-seven years old and have never spent more than twenty-four hours away from my brother. You even lived with me when I was married! You even came on my _honeymoon_.” Simultaneously, the twins hung their heads, breathing deeply.

“I thought it was what you wanted too.” Bill murmured and Tom sighed.

“It was! I don’t regret it. But it’s time for me to live my own life. I’m my own person and I need to do this. It will be good for both of us, I promise.” Tom loosened his grip on Bill’s wrists and watched as he collapsed into the seat beside them, head in his hands. He sat opposite him and reached over to take his hand.

“I have something I need to tell you, too. I wasn’t going to tell you yet but since we’re sharing.” Bill stopped to swallow hard, “I know why Ria left you.”


	16. The Backup Plan

The motorway, fifty miles east of the port of Calais, France at 6:15 on a Saturday morning was pretty much deserted except for the occasional lorry, mostly carrying cases of wine. With the road surrounded by countryside, sprawling woodlands filled with cattle and sheep, the scene was quite tranquil and peaceful. The sun was just rising on the distant pink horizon and the air was still, calm.

That was, until two large, black tour buses pulled up abruptly.

To the occasional passing traffic, the sky appeared to turn as one of the doors was kicked open and Tom jumped off, pulling his bag along with him.

“You’re a fucking cunt!” He screamed back inside the bus.

Tom was absolutely hysterical. As Bill all but fell out of the bus with tears streaming down his cheeks, Gustav had to shield him as Georg held Tom back. He was screaming, shrieking at the top of his voice, and had to be dragged, quite literally, kicking and screaming onto the other bus. He was like a young child having an outrageous tantrum in public because they were denied ice cream. His face was bright red, his hair was frizzy and sticking up and though his eyes were bloodshot, he refused to cry. He wouldn’t give Bill the satisfaction of crying.

No one had ever seen Tom in such a state.

Instinctively, Georg stayed with Tom on their bus while Gustav got his things together and joined Bill on the twins’ bus.

“You need to calm down. Right now.” Georg’s tone was harsh but only for Tom’s own good as they slammed shut the door. His face was still bright red and he was visibly shaking as he trudged along the wooden floor. So unsteady was he that he nearly fell when the bus started moving on the road again. Not quite knowing what to do for the best, Georg went with his instincts and pushed Tom down onto the seat.

“No! I don’t want to _sit_!” Tom shrieked, jerking away from Georg’s touch as if he had electrocuted him. He jumped back up onto his feet, only to be pushed down again, “For fuck’s sake, Georg!” Tom growled, vibrating with frustration. Physically, Georg was far stronger than Tom and so, as he looked up at him, he accepted defeat through gritted teeth.

“Breathe.”

“I don’t want-”

“I don’t give a flying fuck what you want,” Georg interrupted, “Breathe. Deeply.” He squatted in front of Tom, keeping eye contact, “Come on, breathe with me.” Georg said calmly as he started to attempt directed breathing.

“Oh, fuck off.” Tom scowled, rolling his eyes, his jaw tensed up tight but Georg wasn’t about to be deterred, not when his friend was in such a state and he didn’t even know why.

“You just invaded my bus and disturbed my first peaceful sleep in months. So, you will do as I fucking say and _breathe!_ ” Georg demanded and, despite his obvious reservations, Tom started doing as he was told. For a few moments, Tom shakily followed Georg’s lead, breathing hard, long, and deep. In and out. In and out. In and out until he had settled slightly and Georg got up, slipping into the seat opposite him.

“I can’t believe he would do this to me,” Tom murmured, quiet tears now rolling down his cheeks.

“What’s happened?” Georg said it as calmly and as measured as he could manage but Tom just shook his head vigorously.

“I can’t do this tour. Not now. Not with _him_. I can’t!” Tom growled, slamming his fist down on the table.

“ _What happened?_ ” Georg demanded.

“He knows why Ria left me,” Tom choked out, bursting into tears as he said it, “He _knows_! He knew _all along_ and he never told me! He never fucking told me!” His words were muffled and thick with emotion but Georg just about caught the gist of it.

“Bill…he…he _knows_? How? Even Meg doesn’t know!” Georg exclaimed, shocked but Tom scoffed, shaking his head.

“You don’t have a clue. She does know. She told Bill.”

“She _what_?” Georg frowned, confused. He didn’t understand. He didn’t believe Tom. He and Meg shared everything. There was no way that she would know and not tell him, “No, Tom, no. We’ve had so many conversations about it! Wondering why she-” Georg cut himself off, “Why? Why did she leave?” Tom laughed, bitterly.

“Why do you think I’m so mad? He wouldn’t tell me!”

“What?”

“Do you want me to write it down for you? He _wouldn’t tell me_!”

“What the fuck? How could he not tell you?”

“He said,” Tom scoffed, laughing, “He said that it should come from her, he has no right to tell me, apparently. It’s alright for Meg to know and for her to blab to my _fucking twin_ about it but the only person who has an actual right to know, can’t be fucking told!” Tom shrieked in frustration, punching the table again cathartically, “Tell me how that makes sense, G!”

With Tom getting hysterical again, Georg helped him up and lay him down, shrieking and protesting like a toddler having a tantrum. He thrust a bottle of water into his hand and sat on the edge of the bed as Tom’s screams slowly calmed down and eventually stopped as he fell straight into sleep. Georg sighed in frustrated relief and pulled off Tom’s shoes and jacket, covering him with sheets before pulling across the privacy curtain and sitting himself shakily back down at the table.

Georg wasn’t a religious man but he sighed with relief and thanked God for sleeping pills.

Georg checked his watch. 06:53. They were running behind schedule and had just driven onto the ferry to take them across the English Channel.

“Do you want to get off and stretch your legs?” The driver pulled open the door to ask and, with a solemn nod, he grabbed Tom’s cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and jumped off the bus.

Georg breathed in the cold, early morning, fresh sea air and walked over to the barriers, able to see France on one side and England on the other, far in the distance. Nobody else was on deck, his bandmates still on the buses and the other passengers either asleep or on the ferry eating an early breakfast. He lit up a cigarette and took a long, deep drag, a thousand thoughts racing through his mind. He knew that he should be more concerned with Bill and Tom and how this would impact on the tour that was due to start in just thirty-six hours with the first VIP event but all he could think of was his girlfriend.

Meg had sworn blind to him that even though Ria was her best friend, she was just as clueless as the rest of them as to why she had decided to up and leave. Tom was one of his best friends. There had been many times when Tom had cried at Georg’s house about his marriage falling apart. Meg had seen him. She would roll her eyes at him and tell Georg that he needed to ‘get a grip’. Georg knew that he should believe the word of his pregnant girlfriend over that of Bill Kaulitz but he had to admit to himself that it made far more sense for her to know than not.

Georg contemplated phoning his girlfriend for answers. Of course, Bill had a point, Tom should hear the explanation from his ex-wife herself but that seemed unlikely at this point. Ria had left Tom over ten months earlier and had even visited him two weeks earlier but had failed to tell him. That meant that Georg felt like he had a duty to get answers for his friend. He had always silently assumed that Ria had had an affair; but if that was the case, it seemed inconceivable that Bill wouldn’t have divulged that information to Tom. They had all seen the toll that not knowing had had on Tom. Weeks of denial had been followed by months of desperate volatility. Certainly, there had been times where Georg had avoided contact with him, never sure what might set him off.

There was no question, he needed to get answers for him.

Georg pulled out his phone and dialled his Meg’s number. Usually, he would never have dared to call her before ten in the morning. But this was different.

_“Georg, what the hell? Do you know I was up most of last night throwing up? I don’t-”_

“You lied to me.”

_“What?”_

“You told me that you didn’t know why Ria left Tom. But you do. And you told Bill.” Keeping his voice cold and stern was the only way he knew how to get Meg to take him serious. There was a pause and he was about to speak again when he heard a long, tired sigh.

_“Do you know?”_

“No. Bill told Tom he knew but wouldn’t actually tell him the reason.”

_“Listen, I told him because I felt so guilty. It was eating me up inside and I-”_

“So, you told Bill instead of me? I’m your partner! I’m the _father_ of your child!”

_“I’m sorry!”_

“You tell me the reason. You tell me _right now._ ”

_“Fine. But you have to promise not to tell Tom.”_

“You know I can’t promise that.”

_“Please, Georg. Ria’s going to tell him soon. And, believe me, as soon as you hear the reason, you will understand why this has to come from her and not us.”_

*

Tom blinked, confused when he hung up the phone and the privacy curtain was yanked across.

“Well, good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” With Georg’s face in his own, the hazy memory of the night before came flooding back and he felt the anger start to course back through his veins, “Come on, we’re at the hotel.” Tom didn’t move, “Tom, we’ve got to check in.”

“Where is he?” Tom bit out, his jaw tight.

“He’s already checked in…I thought it would probably be wise to wait until he’d gone to his room. Oh, and me and Bill have switched rooms so you’re bunking with me again, kid.”

Reluctantly, Tom dragged himself out of bed and was grateful for Georg taking his bag and suitcase inside. It was a nice hotel in the west end of London with a fountain in the large lobby and a bellboy to carry their bags but Tom hardly noticed anything of the gilded gold as he trudged over to the reception desk. He grunted in affirmation as the clerk asked to confirm his name and allowed himself to be guided to the elevator.

Georg shut the door behind them and Tom fell onto the bed.

“Ok, you need to sit up. I have something to tell you.” Georg sighed, sitting on the edge of the other bed while Tom snapped up.

“Do you know? Did Meg tell you? What is it?” Tom babbled, his eyes wide.

“No, no,” Georg lied, holding his hands up, “Not quite. Uh,” Georg paused, scratching the back of his neck, awkwardly, “Ria is coming to see you after the concert in Hamburg. She’s ready to talk.” But Tom just scoffed and lay back down on the bed.

“She wasn’t ready to tell me when she came to see me two weeks ago, why would she be ready now?”

“Meg talked to her last night and I think she made her see that she is being selfish. Look, I know it’s difficult but don’t be mad at Meg or even at Bill. They think they’re doing what’s right.”

“Bill tells me everything. He should tell me this.” Tom whispered, closing his eyes.

“Maybe you’ll understand once you talk to her,” Georg offered but Tom didn’t reply, he just gave a helpless shrug, “Look, I know this is a lot to take in but you need to get your shit together. We have a long day tomorrow.” Still Tom didn’t reply so Georg grabbed his arm and yanked him up, “Come on, let’s have a cigarette.” Reluctantly, he stood up and followed Georg onto the balcony. They both lit up a cigarette and Tom rubbed his eyes.

“How can I do tomorrow? The show is one thing but…all those fucking VIPs,” Tom groaned, “I don’t want to have to hug all those hormonal chicks who think they’re in love with me.”

“Oh no, you poor thing. How do you manage with such intense adoration? Bless you.” Georg smirked.

“Alright, no need for sarcasm,” Tom scowled, half-heartedly, “I just mean that I could do without that right now. I dunno, I’ll just be happy once I talk to Ria and maybe then I’ll understand why my twin is such a fucking cunt.”

“Hey, we’ve all been trying to figure that one out for nigh on fifteen years so be sure to let me know too, yeah?” Georg was trying to be light hearted and Tom laughed, though it was entirely unnatural, “Look, we don’t have anything scheduled until this evening so why don’t you have a sleep? I’ll find a pizza place and get us something to eat.”

“Oh, I can just get it del-”

“No, I need to go for a walk anyway. You want a sleeping pill?”

“Yeah, where are they?”

“In my bag. I’ll leave them out for you,” Georg coughed as he stood up, “Have another cigarette, I’ll leave them out for you. Listen, have a shower first, get refreshed. I’ll go have a drink with Gustav and bring some pizza back in a few hours, ok?” Georg patted Tom reassuringly on the back and left the hotel room, jogging down the corridor to knock on the hotel room door.

“Hey,” Gustav greeted him as he stepped outside, shoving his phone and wallet in his pocket.

“How’s Bill?” Georg asked as they walked down the stairs, earning himself a derisive snort and shaking of the head.

“Don’t ask. I had to give him a sleeping pill. There’s no way he would have let me leave otherwise.”

“Yeah, I gave Tom one too. I had to slip him one last night as well, he was completely hysterical.”

“Did you tell him about Ria?”

“Yeah, but that just seemed to set him more on edge.”

“Fuck, I am not looking forward to tomorrow.”

“I’ll be amazed if the show even goes ahead at this rate.”

Georg and Gustav eventually arrived down in the lobby and found the dark, stylish cocktail bar next to the attached Italian restaurant. They ordered a pint of beer each and sat in a booth next to the window. It was a grey day, a dark day with a light drizzle pattering down the other side of the glass which looked out onto a traditional pub advertising some local ales, steak pies and that evening’s football match. It pretty much summed up the stereotypical view of England that Georg had always harboured; grey, wet and dull.

Tokio Hotel didn’t have many – if any – British fans. It wasn’t a place where they even released their music, let alone did any promotional work yet there was always a call for them to do a concert in London because of the large, young European population. It was an odd situation but the mix of nationalities provided an incredibly electric atmosphere that had blown them away during the 2015 Feel It All tour.

“I don’t want to worry you,” Gustav broke the silence, taking a deep breath, “But Bill’s losing his voice.”

“ _What_?” Georg felt his heart start to race, “What the fuck do you mean, he’s losing his voice?” Gustav shrugged, helplessly.

“He’s been crying and screaming…another reason I gave him the sleeping pill. At least if he’s asleep, he can’t wreck his voice anymore. I tried to get him to shut up, clamped a hand over his mouth to try and reason with him but he didn’t give a fuck. By the time I slipped him the pill, his voice was breaking, he was coughing like he has fucking lung cancer…yeah. I’m worried.”

“Shit.” Georg gasped with a groan, running a hand through his hair.

“Do we tell Tom?”

“I think we have to, don’t you? He needs to know if Bill can’t sing.” Georg spoke thoughtfully, trying to stay calm though his insides felt as though they were deceiving him. Starting a tour was stressful enough without their singer losing his damn voice. Gustav looked at him with his eyebrows raised.

“You don’t really think-”

“If he has to. And he does have to.”

“The fans won’t be happy.”

“Are you kidding?” Georg forced a smirk though his leg was shaking, “They’ll love it.”

“I wish I had your confidence.” Gustav grinned and took a long drink, “God, this beer is nothing like back home.”

“I know. You want another one?”

“Of course.”

As they finished their first pint and ordered a second, they changed the subject, trying to keep the tone light. There was no point talking about the show the next day. There was nothing that they could do with both twins very much unconscious in bed and so they attempted to momentarily distract themselves.

They soon finished drinking and Gustav was about to order another when Georg stopped him.

“I think I need something to eat first. I told Tom I’d bring him back some pizza but he’ll be out for hours if you wanna get something to eat?”

“Sure, they do good curries over here.”

Georg and Gustav left the hotel bar and hailed a taxi, both mentally rolling their eyes when the cockney driver laughed at their accents; _‘two world wars and one world cup, eh lads?’_.

Nevertheless, he happily drove them a short distance to a so-called ‘curry lounge’ that he called the best in London. It looked ridiculously dark and extravagant from the outside. No doubt it was something that Bill would find classy but, to Georg, it looked like a strip club that served a Jalfrezi. But they went on inside anyway and were seated by a beautiful young Indian woman. She had beautifully long, silky hair that was lightly curled while it fell down her slender back. Her voice was warm as she greeted them and Georg could practically _hear_ the honey dripping from her words.

“Fuck, did you see her?” Georg hissed as she walked away.

“Who?” Gustav looked up from his menu, oblivious.

“The waitress!”

“Oh, no. Was she hot?”

“Hot? Hot? She’s so hot that she’ll burn off my cock when I-”

“ _Yes_ , could I get a pint of beer please?” Gustav cut him off unnaturally loudly as the waitress came back over to take their drinks order.

“Just sparkling water for me,” Georg muttered, his cheeks flaming, embarrassed. She flashed a wide smile and sauntered off, “Is she shaking her ass on purpose or-”

“Seriously?” Gustav interrupted, “You have a pregnant girlfriend back home.”

“Hey, I wasn’t talking about marrying the girl.”

“Speaking of which, when are you going to propose to Meg?”

“Are you joking?” Georg laughed, “She doesn’t like marriage, thinks it’s too establishment.”

“That woman of yours really has a stick up her ass, doesn’t she?” Gustav laughed while Georg murmured his agreement and started reading the menu.

Georg didn’t much mind his bandmates and wider circle of friends ripping into his relationship with Meg. Most of the time, they weren’t far off the mark. She was uptight, she’d always been uptight. She was stubborn, yes, but such stubbornness took passion and she really did have a lot of passion bottled up inside her. Bill and Gustav would never understand their relationship and yes, it was for lack of trying. Bill liked Meg as a person – they could spend hours together talking about music, fashion, and their personal lives – but he wasn’t shy about letting it be known that he thought their relationship was rather ridiculous at times. Which it was. Though not for reasons that any of his friends knew about.

There was no need to tell anyone that he and Meg were in a dominant/submissive relationship that spilled over out of the bedroom.

They soon ordered and even sooner, their curries arrived complete with naan breads hanging up on a stick.

“What the fuck?”

“You tell me.”

It turned out that the taxi driver wasn’t far wrong. Despite the strip club-like feel of the place and bread hanging up on stands resembling Rudolph’s antlers, the curry was very much as delicious as the waitress who served it to them. And that included how hot it was where Gustav was concerned.

“My asshole is going to be burning tonight,” Gustav mumbled, while continuing to shove spoonsful of his lamb vindaloo into his mouth.

“Damn, you’re going to spend tonight shitting your guts out while Bill cries on the other side of the door. I don’t envy you,” Georg smirked, eating his beef madras which was enviably far milder, “Speaking of which, we do need to tell Tom.”

“We?” Gustav protested, “Are you kidding? Jesus, give that boy anymore stress and he might have a fucking heart attack.”

“I know,” Georg sighed, “but it can’t be avoided. He’ll be more on edge if we have to straight up cancel the concert!”

“Hmm, I dunno. I really don’t know if this is a good idea.”

“It’s a great idea! We can sell it to the fans and the media as an _exclusive_.”

“An exclusive it may be but whether it’s a welcome exclusive is another issue altogether.”

They soon finished eating and the beautiful waitress brought them their bill. Georg paid with his credit card and she handed him a folded receipt which he stuffed into his wallet before leaving. It had only taken them five minutes in the taxi earlier to drive to the restaurant and so the pair decided to walk back to the hotel. They went back to the dark cocktail bar and, feeling adventurous, they ordered a Whisky Horse Feather cocktail each. They chatted aimlessly for a while, mostly about football and their shared love for Bayern Munich.

Georg and Gustav had what Georg would call a rather unique friendship. They were closer to each other than they were to either Bill or Tom; where they could go several weeks without communicating at all with the twins while they were on a break, Georg was sure that he hadn’t gone longer than three or four days without at least messaging Gustav since they met seventeen years earlier. Georg was the first to be told when Gustav got engaged and when Franz fell pregnant. Georg had guessed that, with the twins being so impossibly close, they had both craved such a friendship and of course, found it in each other.

“Bill would hate it, you know. _Tom_ would hate it.” Gustav pointed out.

“The fans would fucking love it.”

“But how can you be so sure?”

“Ok, I’ll give you a thousand euros if the fans don’t love it.” Georg wasn’t just sure, he was positive.

“You know,” Gustav checked his watch, “We’ve been out for nearly four hours, maybe we should wake them up or they won’t sleep tonight.”

“They’re aren’t children, Gus.”

“Really? Could’ve fooled me.”

Gustav wasn’t wrong. Georg couldn’t even remember the amount of times that they had been on tour and he had had to break up a fight between the pair of them.

After finishing their second Horse Feather, they paid their tab and made their way back up to their rooms. Thinking about the conversation that he was about to have with Tom made Georg both glad that he had had a few drinks and that he was very good at holding his drink.

“And you’re sure that Bill can’t sing tomorrow?” Georg asked as they reached his room.

“Well, no, I’m not _sure_. But we’re going to have to get the med team to have a look at him and I can’t see them saying that he can. I mean, he was _screaming_ all night.”

“Damn, ok. I’ll let you know how it goes.” He let himself back into his hotel room to see Tom’s eyes flicker open when he heard the door open.

“G?” He groaned, rolling over.

“Ok, get up and wake up, Tom. We need to talk,” Georg muttered as he sat on the edge of his bed, watching as Tom roll around on his bed, groaning, “Tom, c’mon, I’m not fucking about.” Huffing, Tom hauled himself up and looked up at Georg with exhausted, bleary eyes.

“What?”

“Ok. Ok, well, the thing is, Bill-”

“Don’t talk to me about that motherfucker.”

“Oh my _God_ , shut up and listen for once in your life!” Georg nearly shouted, making Tom recoil slightly and sit up just a little straighter, “Right, so the thing is, Bill got…kind of hysterical last night and apparently he’s lost his voice. So…you know how you put in place a backup plan in case that happened?” Tom frowned, confused for a moment until the realisation of what Georg was talking about dawned on him.

“You are joking, aren’t you? The backup plan is only for if Bill’s voice fucks up in the _middle_ of a concert, not the day before! If that dickhead has lost his voice then cancel the concert, I don’t give a fuck.”

“Oh, shut _up_! You’ve worked on this show for nearly a year, you’re the last person who wants to see this show cancelled!”

“Georg, for fuck sake. I am _not_ singing!”


	17. The Singer No One Wanted

_“I’m looking for something new. I don’t know what I’m looki-”_ Tom cut himself off with an outrageous coughing fit as he tried to reach the high notes of the opening song, “Fuck!” He stamped on the ground like a petulant child in frustration and flopped back onto the bed.

“Oh, come on, that was only your first go! Try it again.” Georg encouraged but Tom covered his face with his hands and shook his head.

“I can’t do it! There is only eighteen hours until the first VIP slot tomorrow and I can’t even get the first song right!” Since Tom had been convinced by Georg two hours earlier to sing in Bill’s place at the debut concert of the tour the next day, his entire body had been coursing with anxiety and the most intense stress that he had ever known.

“Tom,” Gustav sat beside him and pulled on his arm, making him sit back up, “this is by far the hardest song on the setlist. I know that you don’t even need to practice _Monsun_ or _Automatic_ or _What If_. I think if we just get in two rehearsals tomorrow morning before we meet the VIPs, it’ll be sweet!” Tom looked over to Gustav and then up at Georg, the panic positively radiating from his eyes.

“Fine, but if this isn’t absolutely nailed by the end of the second rehearsal, we’re cancelling it, ok?”

It was a nightmare. It was a fucking nightmare. Ever since their _Schrei So Laut du Kannst_ tour all the way back in 2006, they had always had a backup plan that, if Bill lost his voice in the middle of a show, Tom would take over and sing for the rest of it. It was simply an emergency plan that had never been employed and they had never really discussed all that much. Tom had done backup vocals for nearly every track that they had ever done and so he knew the songs perfectly well. However, there was the small logistical issue of his voice itself. It was no secret that his voice had always been deeper than Bill's, which, obviously, made the singing of several songs - particularly Something New - rather difficult.

"Why don't you just sing it differently? Just because you're standing in for Bill doesn't mean that you must sing every song exactly like him. Do it in a way that feels comfortable. If you don't want to sing the high parts, then don't. You're only standing in for Bill, remember. You're not his impersonator." Georg's reassuring words were working. Sort of. Tom could feel the raging butterflies in his stomach start to settle down and he swallowed hard, nodding.

"Ok. Ok, let's try it again."

And so, Tom sang _Something New_ again. And again. And again. And again, trying out different ways of singing the song along with the high parts until he finally settled on a method that felt right, that felt easy to do. He wasn't too worried about most of the other songs. The auto tune in the songs added by the onstage equipment would definitely help with most of the songs like Cotton Candy Sky but there were others like-

"Fuck!" Tom shouted, "What about _Boy Don't Cry_?"

"What about it?"

" _It's such a beautiful night_!" Tom wailed, entirely and embarrassingly out of tune. So much so, in fact, that even Georg and Gustav's support wavered as they smirked, trying, and failing to contain their laughter, "How can I change that?"

"Jesus, Tom, of all the things you could be fretting about, you pick that? Just sing it low!" Gustav looked at Tom like he was stupid.

" _It's such a beautiful night..._ " Tom sang, deeply, as felt natural and nodded, "Ok, ok, you're right. Sorry." Tom sighed, yanking the tie out of his hair, running a hand through the dark waves, "I can't remember ever feeling so...out of place. I feel like I don't have a fucking clue what's going on! Does Bill even know that we're doing this?" Tom snapped his head over as Georg scoffed.

"Are you kidding? He'd crucify us. This show is his crowning glory. He's going to be devastated!" Georg shook his head as Tom just looked at him as he spoke, his jaw hanging open in disbelief.

“Huh. Then we should tell him as soon as possible!" It was forced happiness, and the Gs knew it. He was still angry with Bill. He was furious, in fact and couldn’t even fathom being in the same room as him. But despite that, Tom couldn’t help but feel guilty that the three of them were planning on completely overhauling the entire show without even letting Bill know. But Bill wasn't stupid and as far as Tom was concerned, if what Gustav was saying was true then he should really know and understand that there wasn't a chance that he would be singing at the show the next day. And with Tom already owing eighty-five thousand euros, he wasn't about to make it an even hundred thousand.

And so, they kept practising. After Tom was confident that _Something New_ was at least partially nailed, he moved onto _Stop, Babe_. It was the song that closed the show and one of the songs with the least amount of auto tune. The confetti canon was released in the middle of the song so it had to have an impact. Surprisingly, however, it wasn’t that difficult; there wasn’t much range needed for it and its lack of high notes was a welcome relief.

“Right, now you’re good with _Monsun_ , right?” Georg asked, “because if there’s one song we can’t fuck up, it’s that one.”

“Are you kidding? That’s the one song I know I can do in my sleep.”

Nevertheless, Tom sang it anyway before running through all the other songs in the setlist until he saw his bandmates start yawning.

"Shall we order room service?" It was nearly half past one in the morning and the three of them could tell already that they were in for a long night.

"Yeah, get a couple pizzas."

The three of them took a break while Georg phoned room service and Tom pulled out his phone, grinning bashfully to himself when he saw a notification from Emilia.

_This place is insane! xxx_

_Have you tried out the pool? xxx_

_Not yet, I only just got here! I'm so jetlagged xxx_

_Sleep in my bedroom, mine is the nicer one haha xxx_

_Does it turn you on that I'm going to be sleeping naked in your bed? xxx_

_Fuck...you're such a sexy bitch_ _xxx_

Tom hadn't yet told Emilia about the show. He wasn't sure that he wanted to say it aloud to someone outside of the band yet. He was terrified of someone confirming his worst fear - that it was a terrible idea and they were insane for thinking that there was any way that they could possibly pull it off.

"Are you going to wear Bill's outfits?" Gustav sniggered as the three of them went out onto the balcony to light up a much needed, well deserved, cigarette each.

"What?" Tom raised a horrified eyebrow at the suggestion while Georg tried and failed once again to hide his laughter.

"Bill's outfits. Are you going to wear them? The skin-tight latex catsuit with matching mask, the sheer black bodysuit...are you going to rock them?" Gustav's excellent poker face was enough to instil the most severe terror in Tom that he had ever known.

"Are you insane? Are you high?" He turned to Georg, "Is he high? What the fuck have you been smoking?"

"Why? You want some?"

"Damn fucking right I do!" They laughed and Tom found himself start to finally relax. Only a little but it was very much welcome, "Nah, but seriously, I'm wearing the khaki outfit I already had planned and if Bill doesn't like it then he can suck it." Singing was one thing but wearing Bill's absurdly flamboyant outfits was very much another thing altogether.

"You know, maybe we should go and tell Bill now. I know we don't want to face his reaction but the longer we leave it, the worse his reaction is going to be." Gustav pointed out, his face ashen. Tom sighed, taking a long drag on his cigarette. Gustav was right, he knew that. It wasn't as if they couldn't tell him. He would be devastated though, there was no question about that.

"I'll come with you if you want." Tom offered, making Georg and Gustav glance at each other doubtfully.

"This is going to upset him enough without you starting another argument."

"You say that like I'm the one in the wrong!"

"No, I didn't say that! I just mean that we should tell him alone, it'll probably soften the blow." Gustav pointed out and, reluctantly, Tom nodded. He knew they were talking sense, he didn't particularly want to be a part of crushing his twin, even if it did seem as though their relationship had been irreparably damaged.

"And you never know, maybe his voice will have recovered!" Georg said brightly, optimistically, earning himself a derisive snort from Gustav.

"He could barely fucking talk three hours ago but yeah, maybe he's ready to do a ninety minute show, huh?"

"Alright, alright, don't spoil it," Georg hissed, "The room service will be here soon...stuff your face, talk to Emilia, maybe have a wank. Just distract yourself for a while, ok? We'll be as quick as we can." Tom nodded. He felt like a school child being directed by the overzealous drama teacher but he did find that having someone else take charge for a change was a blessed relief. Georg and Gustav clapped him on the back as they left the hotel room and Tom spent a few relaxed moments lying on his bed, wondering what the fuck he had gotten himself into.

Tom literally felt as if he was living in a nightmare. He had always been able to sing. Indeed, he had always done the backing vocals for Bill, ever since their first album, Schrei. But he had never, never, sung alone without Bill's voice overlaying his own. Making the music was fine. it was easier to hide behind the sounds of the melody and so Tom had always begrudgingly admired Bill for being the singer. For being the singer opened you up to so much more criticism. It was easy to criticise the voice but it wasn't so easy to criticise the guitar. If your voice was bad, it was embarrassingly obvious and Tom's stomach started turning over as it started to dawn on him just how terrifyingly exposed he would be on that stage tomorrow night. He wasn't the singer everyone was expecting and he was fairly sure that he wasn't the singer that anyone wanted.

 _"You are amazing! This place is amazing! Did I tell you I love you yet? Because now I'm doubly sure that I do!"_ Tom laughed as he heard Emilia's voice.

"You like it, huh?"

_"Are you kidding? I just used your waterfall shower and now I'm lying in your bed and I feel like a fucking princess!"_

"Do you feel like a naked princess?" Her roar of a laugh made him smirk.

_"Of course."_

"Tell me what you're doing..." Tom groaned, licking his lips.

_"I'm literally falling asleep."_

“Boring. So…listen, it’s getting a bit crazy here.”

_“What’s going on?”_

“Bill lost his voice. Apparently, he sounds like a fucking frog.”

_“Oh fuck. Is the tour cancelled?”_

“No…we’re getting a doctor to see him tomorrow morning but he’s not doing the gig tomorrow.”

_“Shit, so no London concert? Have the fans been told?”_

“Ah…no. I’m going to sing.”

_“You…you’re going to sing? How’s that going to work?”_

“Well, I’m still going to play the guitar and the keyboard. We have like five guys doing computers backstage and they’re trained to do everything so that’s no big deal really.”

_“Damn. Are you ok with that?”_

“Well, I’m fucking terrified and I’ve felt incredibly nauseous since we made the decision so…no, I don’t think so.”

 _"Ok, well, that's ok!"_ Tom snorted, amused at her positivity.

"Is it?"

_"Yeah, it's ok to be scared. Frankly, I'd be amazed if you weren't. But being scared is good, you need the adrenaline to carry you through."_

"I dunno. I mean, I know the songs and like I said, we've got the delivery of the music sorted so that's no problem. It's just...everyone loves Bill. He's the frontman! Even if they do like the novelty of me singing, they're going to be pissed that he's not there!"

_"Hang on, I'm confused. Why can't he be there?"_

"What?"

_"You said he's lost his voice. You didn't say that he was ill or anything."_

"No, he's not ill."

_"So why can't he be on stage?"_

"And do what?"

 _"I don't know. Can he play guitar?"_ Tom had to laugh at that one.

"Are you kidding? Bill doesn't have the patience for that."

_"Is there anything else he could do? The computers or the drums or something?"_

"I hadn't thought of that," He really hadn't. His mind had been so clouded with the prospect of singing on stage that he hadn't even considered any role that Bill might play in the show.

 _"You should. You're right, everyone loves Bill and he should have some kind of role in the show."_ Tom heard her yawn as she spoke.

"I will. Listen, you should go sleep off the jet lag."

_"Ok, ok, I will. I'll message you when I wake up, yeah? Keep me updated."_

Tom hung up the phone just as there was a knock at the door. He got up to accept the room service and switched on the television as he started picking at the pizza. Usually, Tom was very much a comfort eater but as he stared down at the triple cheese pizza before him, he suddenly understood why food was sometimes so unappealing to his twin brother. Nevertheless, he forced himself to eat a couple of slices, even though it did take him nearly fifteen minutes to do so. It wasn't long before the door opened again and Georg and Gustav came trudging back in, sighing as the door slammed shut behind them.

"He wasn't happy," Gustav muttered, shaking his head as they fell back onto the bed next to Tom's.

"Oh really? I never would have guessed. What did he say?"

"Well, he agreed that there was no way that he was going to be able to sing and...it took some convincing but he finally saw that the best option we had was to let you sing."

"Fuck...he must be heartbroken." Tom murmured as Georg nodded.

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Listen, I just spoke with Emilia and she asked me if there was anything Bill could do on stage? I mean, I know he can't play an instrument but, he could work one of the computers, right? I mean, he could have the responsibility of one of the stage hands? It could be something real simple, like that guy who cues the change in lighting and the change of the songs...the fans would never know and at least he would be on the fucking stage."

Georg and Gustav spent the next four hours listening to Tom sing the songs of the set over and over, offering praise, suggestions, and direct criticisms and with every song that he sang, he started to feel increasingly confident in what he was doing. Granted, he still wasn't even close to being comfortable but, by the time Gustav left, Tom could finally envision himself on that stage, singing to a crowd.

Exhausted, both Tom and Georg soon fell straight to sleep, their alarm set so they could only have four hours sleep. He had a refreshingly restless sleep, the type that he could normally only achieve through getting completely and utterly stoned before letting his head hit the pillow. But the mental exhaustion was enough to make him totally blackout.

The next morning, even the alarm wasn't enough to wake him up. Instead, he relied on Georg shaking him awake.

"Come on, we have to be at the club in half an hour." With an exhausted groan, Tom rolled out of bed, had a quick shower, and stuffed some fresh clothes into a bag, letting Georg drag him outside and bundle him into a taxi.

"Are you ok?"

"If this rehearsal doesn't go well, we're calling it off, understand?"

"We have time to do more than two rehearsals. I phoned Bill earlier and he reckons that he can get to grips with some simple stuff on the computers. We can rehearse for six hours and then we have the first VIPs. It'll be fine, I promise." Georg's reassuring words were working, for once and Tom nodded, the butterflies in his stomach starting to evolve into adrenaline coursing through his veins.

"I think I can do this, you know," Tom said as the taxi pulled up opposite the KoKo club in Camden town. He may have been sure of that before he got out of the taxi but as he got out and walked past the crowds of fans who had already congregated outside the venue, suddenly he wasn't too sure.

He swallowed hard as the door slammed shut behind them.

"You can do this." Tom froze as Bill suddenly appeared in front of him, offering him a hand.

“You think?”

“You’ll be great.”


	18. A Little Show About Cocaine

_Dearest Tom,_

_I think of you all day, every day. In ten years, not a day has gone by where I haven't thought of you. It brings me great pain and such horribly intense regret that in all these years, I have never been able to meet you but I swear that it hasn't been through lack of trying! I come from quite a poor family and so could never afford to travel from my small home village in the North of France to come to one of your incredible concerts._  
I have watched the DVDs over and over again. I've immersed myself so much in them that I can feel myself there, with you. I know that you put across this playboy image of yourself but I also know that that isn't who you really are. I know that you're a kind, sensitive soul who loves deeply and needs a woman to love him in the same way but I fear that that hasn't been the case.  
When I saw on Instagram that you had filed for divorce, I cried. Not because you had finally gotten rid of that bitch but because I knew how much you must have been hurting. It must have stirred up so many emotions that you felt when you were a child, when your parents got divorced. I'm sorry to remind you of that, it's so painful - I know that because my parents got divorced when I was 16. I just need you to know that I know how you feel but I couldn't be there for you to help you, that's what made me so sad! Knowing you were so alone was devastating.  
I am writing this before I meet you at London's meet and greet but I know that it will be the best experience of my life. I know that sometimes you hate contact with fans but I will be the girl whose embrace feels right and comfortable. You will feel overwhelmed with love and appreciation, just like I did the very first time I ever saw you, when I first watched you in the music video for Durch den Monsun.  
So I needed to write this to you because I don't want you to feel like I did. There's nothing worse than falling so deeply in love with someone at first sight and then having no way of knowing if they felt the same as you or how to get in contact with them.  
I love you Tom and I know that as soon as our eyes meet, you will feel the same.

_All my love,_

_Manette xxxxxxxxxx_

"Jesus Christ." Georg roared with laughter as Tom read out the letter than had been slipped into his pocket by one of the seventy-five girls at the pre-show VIP slot.

"I didn't think we even had crazy fans like that anymore!" Gustav laughed.

"We? Hey, this is addressed to 'Dearest Tom' not 'Dearest all you guys'!"

"You're the one attracting crazy people. You really want to advertise that?"

Bill and Tom both acknowledged that they were still firmly in the middle of a massive row. But they also had silently agreed that this was to be the eye of the storm. The show had to go on, there was no compromising that. And so, they put their differences aside as they waited upstairs in the KoKo club while the stage hands got the set ready. With Tom now in place for singing, it was taking slightly longer than usual and everyone was on tenterhooks. It was either going to be great or it was going to be absolutely catastrophic and no one was quite sure which it was going to be.

The night before, Tom would definitely have said that catastrophe was a sure bet but now he wasn't too sure.

"Are you ok?" Bill asked. Tom considered lying but knew that his twin would see right through him.

“I’m really scared,” Tom muttered, “what if they hate it?”

“Tom. How many tweets and comments on Facebook and Instagram do we get asking you to sing a song?” Bill had a point. They’d had _thousands_.

“I know, I know but you’re the singer. You’re the front man. You’re the one everyone is expecting. I get that it would be cool for them for me to do one song, but the whole set?”

“You’re missing the bigger picture. These guys tonight are going to be the _only_ people ever to get you singing the entire show. They will be the fucking envy of every other fan in the world! This isn’t just an exclusive, it’s a _onetime thing_. We are rescheduling the show in Belgium tomorrow and the Doctor said I should be fine for the gig in Hamburg so this is insane! I promise you that they will fucking love it. So, stop worrying about what the fans are thinking.”

Tom nodded along as Bill gave him a pep talk and it was much needed. Tom was shaking and he didn't know how he was going to stop himself from doing so while he was on stage. The only thing he could be glad about was that there was going to be a sheer curtain up at the front of the stage throughout the first song - _Something New_ \- until the final part. The fact that Tom was the singer would be concealed until then, so at least he would have a few minutes to get comfortable on stage before he was faced with the possible wrath of the crowd before him. However, Georg and Gustav had let it be known that they were convinced that it was blatantly obvious that it wasn't Bill singing. So, Tom reasoned, at least a curtain would save him from having a bottle thrown at his head for a few moments.

Tom checked his watch. It was half past eight and the band stood up to have their nervous pre-show huddle. This one, of course, was way more nervous than usual. Georg and Gustav were doing what they had originally planned to do and while one of the stage hands were going to be doing what Tom should have been doing on computers and keyboards backstage, Tom was going to be singing and playing the guitar. Bill, on the other hand, was to do some simple jobs on the computers, dance and 'interact with the fans'. Nobody was quite sure exactly what the latter meant but they had given him leave to perhaps bring some fans up onto the stage. Due to the frantic nature of this show, they had cancelled the VIPs who had been due to come on stage with them during _Automatic_  and, instead, had offered them - if they were around - to spend a few hours with them the next day, since they weren't going to Belgium. All of them had of course jumped at the chance.

"Guys? We're ready."

Tom took a long, shaky breath and followed his band mates downstairs to the stage door. Bill, of course, was still wearing his planned outfit and Tom felt rather under dressed now that he was the front man in just a t-shirt and jeans.

"Come here," Bill drew Tom into a tight hug and Tom shakily returned it, holding him tight, "You're going to do a great job, I promise. You're a great singer and everyone is going to love you, ok?" Tom nodded and jogged onto stage behind Bill and Georg. It was a small stage but a relatively tall set had been erected on stage and the three of them took their places on top of it, with Gustav sitting at the bottom with his drum set. Tom was visibly trembling as the music started and he heard the fans start to scream at the very top of their lungs. He turned to Bill and shook his head.

"I can't!" He mouthed while Bill frowned, nodding.

"Yes, you can!" He mouthed back and Tom suddenly realised that there was absolutely no going back now. All too soon, his cue eventually came and he stepped up to the microphone.

_"Midnight in my city. All these lights they call my name. My world isn't pretty. I've seen the best of it, I've got the best of you..."_

As Tom sang, he suddenly noticed that something was off. Something was wrong but for a second, he couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. But then it came to him.

The crowd was completely silent.

They knew something was off. Everyone in the crowd knew Bill's voice better than their own and every single one of them knew that it wasn't him singing.

_"I've felt everything I'm ever gonna feel. Don't know where I've been. All these streets long wrong, don't know where I belong."_

Still, the crowd was silent and Tom was getting worried. Somehow, he steadied his nerve and signalled to one of the stage hands to lower the curtain early.

 _"Something new..."_ And the curtain dropped to reveal Tom in front of the microphone.

It took the crowd a second to realise what was going on. The sight of the man in a glittery bodysuit with perfectly slicked back hair behind the computer with the other with a slightly scruffy man bun behind the microphone jarred the audience for a moment before they burst into absolutely deafening applause and screams. So loud, in fact, that no one could even hear Tom sing for a moment.

Which suited him fine.

He looked out into the crowd and all he could see were scores of girls screaming in disbelief at the top of their lungs. It fuelled the adrenaline right into his lungs and his voice was now more powerful that it had been at the beginning. He was being completely and utterly driven by the most intense rush of adrenaline that he had ever known.

_“…for something I never knew.”_

As the crowd screamed at the top of their collective lungs, Tom's face flushed bright red. He walked behind Bill down the small stairs to the front of the stage, his guitar strapped around him. He stepped up to the microphone and grinned as he looked over to Bill, waiting for the crowd to calm down.

"Ok, so that was kinda unexpected, right?" Cue another round of screaming, "Late last night Bill lost his voice. We were freaking out, didn't know what to do when Georg and Gustav-" Tom was cut off by more screams at the names of his band mates, "when Georg and Gustav suggested that maybe I should sing. I thought it was an insane idea but after some convincing, I agreed to perform the show instead. What do you guys think about that?" Tom couldn't believe it when he heard the screams radiate out, even louder than before and he saw the faces of their delirious fans overwhelmed by excitement in their first few rows.

"Who wants to hear a little song about cocaine?" They launched into _Boy Don't Cry_ and Tom could only watch while he sang as Bill gestured to one of the security guards and pulled one of the girls at the front onto the stage. He tried not to stare as Bill put his arms around the pretty blonde's waist and started to dance with her. She _was_ pretty. Gorgeous in fact. With her porcelain skin, white blonde hair and lithe figure, she looked like the Ice Queen. Throughout the song, Tom kept stealing small glances over at her as she danced with Bill, clearly in utter shock as they danced together, Bill's arm around her waist.

The song soon ended and, with a kiss to her cheek, Bill sent her back into the crowd which was seething with envy.

With each song that he sang, Tom found himself growing in confidence and, by the time _Heart Get No Sleep_ finished, Tom found that he was actually enjoying himself. He signalled to the stage hands and his band mates not to launch into the next song just yet and he stepped up to the microphone, clearing his throat.

"This was the last song that we recorded for our new album, _Dream Machine_. I've never spoken about my divorce in public before but I wrote this song just a few days before I filed. Me and Bill were in a bar and she turned up, tried to speak to me and I had a choice. Do I go ahead and file for divorce as planned? Or do I go back? I decided to be strong because I'm better off on my own."

_"And we're hanging somewhere downtown. You say hi. You say you miss me and you make sure that I'm alright. You say you've figured it out. You say you're better now. You pet me back and say you'd like to spend the night..."_

As Tom sang, he was very aware of the bewildered looks that his band mates were trying to mask. Tom was an extremely private person. The fact that he had just discussed his divorce so publicly was, quite frankly, astonishing. This night was certainly one for surprises.

When the song finished, Tom spotted the Ice Queen from _Boy Don't Cry_ and asked one of the security guards to bring her back on stage, to her own and the audience's shock. Bill had brought different girls on stage during each song so far and Tom knew that everyone in the audience was speculating about why Tom had chosen that girl to bring back on stage. As _Cotton Candy Sky_ started up, Bill danced with her, his hands all over her as he drew her close and practically started grinding against her, not that she had absolutely any complaints about it. Towards the end of the song, Tom took the microphone off the stand and went over to her.

This was the part of the song that he was supposed to sing to Bill. But with the way he was feeling towards Bill, there was no way that Tom felt he could even contemplate singing it to him. So, he took the Ice Queen’s wrist and moved his hand down to her waist, his adrenaline perhaps stopping him from realising what this may look like on the videos that were undoubtedly being recorded. He pointed the microphone at her and grinned as she sang.

 _"We both know we might end up alone."_ Damn. The Ice Queen's voice was just as beautiful as she was. Tom looked into her eyes as he sang back to her.

_"We have each other."_

_"We both know we might end up alone."_ Her husky voice, with a soft Eastern European twang was simply gorgeous.

_"But we have each other."_

_"We both know we might end up alone."_

_"Only each other!"_ With his hand holding hers, Tom returned the Ice Queen back to Bill, who looked at him with anger and confusion flashed across his face. He had sung the song, _their_ song, with – and to – some random fan. But Tom didn’t have room to worry about Bill’s feelings and he finished the song, his favourite on their new album.

They got to the acoustic set and though Tom was grateful for the chance to finally sit down, he could feel his stomach start to turn over. The next song was _Run, Run, Run_. A firm fan favourite and a disgustingly difficult song to sing, especially given that his voice was noticeably deeper than Bill's and that the arrangement for the song was considerably more stripped back than the show had been up to that point. Nevertheless, he gathered himself and mustered the built-up adrenaline to get him through the song. Given the slow, almost peaceful nature of the atmosphere, Tom had a moment to look out across the crowd and he saw a sea of girls, all staring at him with adoration in their eyes. He couldn't be sure whether he was imagining the adoration, of course but he simply adored the way they sang along with him and he couldn't help but feel his heart start to swell as it finally dawned on him that the show was going well. He didn't think it was possible, but it was! He had almost expected to have been booed off the stage with the fans in disgust when they knew that he would be singing for the entire show but apparently, they were loving it.

It was the biggest boost to his ego that he had ever had.

"So, Bill wanted to do _Black_ for the next song but, if I'm being honest with you guys, I don't think I can remember the lyrics," He grinned as the crowd laughed, "So, I apologise but I'm going to sing this one in German." The dedication of their fans would never cease to amaze Tom and so he was rather blown away when they all sang along to _Schwarz_. So much so that Tom wasn't sure that he could be heard at all. He wouldn't complain about that, though.

The first song after the acoustic section was _Girl Got a Gun_ , one of Tom's favourites. It was a pretty easy song to sing, no complicated parts, repetitive as fuck and he could play the guitar riff while stuck in a coma. He half noticed Bill pull another girl up on stage but didn't pay too much attention as he concentrated on singing and playing guitar, something he wasn't quite used to doing, even when, separately, they were very easy to do. However, towards the song, when the key changed, Tom couldn't quite believe it when he turned his head.

 _"When I move on, when I move on I feel desire."_ Tom was sure he must have been hallucinating as he sang that line. He must have been because there was no way that his very private, gay twin brother, had grabbed the girls hand and guided her to squeeze his cock over his tight, leather body suit.

But Tom didn't have the mental capacity to be shocked in that moment, he had far more important things to be concerned about.

Tom breathed the most intense sigh of relief when he realised that, finally, _Durch den Monsun_ was the next song.

 _"Das fenster öffnet sich nicht mehr. Hier drin' ist es voll von dir und leer. Und vor mir geht die letzte kerze aus."_ It was the song that Tom knew best. It was the song that he knew without any doubt that he could sing well. Most importantly, it was the song that everyone in the audience loved to scream out. _Monsun_ got more and more magical to perform each time they went on tour. It was incredible to go to a non-German speaking country and have everyone in the room know the lyrics absolutely word perfect, even though it had been a ridiculous twelve years since the song was released. It was even more incredible now that he was there, singing and playing guitar.

When the show finally ended, Tom found that he hadn't realised how much the adrenaline had kept him going on stage. He practically collapsed into Georg's arms the second that they ran off stage.

"You fucking smashed it, boy! You were incredible! They loved you!"

"Water. I need water. And a cigarette. I need so fucking many cigarettes."

"Damn, after that, you can have all the cigarettes you can fit in that mouth." Georg helped Tom up the stairs and deposited him, ungracefully, onto the old, battered sofa. Tom lay down, breathing deeply as his heart hammered so hard that it was almost painful.

“I can’t believe you just did that! You killed it!”

Someone gave Tom a bottle of water, which he drank back in one go but it didn’t quench his first in the slightest. He lay on the sofa with an arm thrown over his eyes as he tried to disappear into his own little world for a moment. He couldn’t believe he had done it. He couldn’t believe that he had had the courage to do something that he had previously only ever done in his nightmares. Tom had always wondered how Bill could get up on stage, night after night and expose himself so blatantly. To open his heart and soul for criticism, night after night. But as his body coursed with excitement, he realised that he’d never felt so high while so sober and he understood why Bill loved it all so much.


	19. Bizarre Behaviour

_“I just watched the videos online! Babe, you were incredible! I have no words. There are no words. I didn’t know you could sing like that! You realise that you will be serenading me to sleep every night when I finally get my hands on you again, right? I hope my calling hasn’t woken you up, you deserve a long rest after that show. You’re incredible. I love you so much.”_

Tom felt sick as he heard to the voicemail message that he had put off listening to for the past twenty-four hours.

*

_ Twenty-Four Hours Earlier _

Tom had been tempted to stay up all night after the concert and smoke more weed than he ever had before, pop a few Es and track down some acid while partying all night long. He had never partied in London before. He wanted to go to a strip club and get absolutely off his face. He figured that he must be getting old though when he realised that the prospect of just crawling into bed with a joint was so appealing to him that it was almost turning him on. He had fallen into bed and, for the first time in months, he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. He slept for a solid ten hours without waking up even once and it was truly the most blissful sleep that he had had in a very long time.

When he finally woke up, it was only because Georg had ordered room service and the smell of bacon, eggs and pancakes was enough to rouse his senses. His heavy eyes flickered open and he rolled over with a groan, grappling with his phone to find messages from apparently everyone he knew, all going crazy about the show last night. There had already been dozens of videos uploaded online and, thankfully, everyone was loving his performance.

"Well, hello Sleeping Beauty." Georg smirked as he sat on his bed with a mouthful of thick, American pancakes. Tom grinned and stretched, his eyelids still heavy.

"I am still beautiful, aren't I?"

"Of course," Georg grinned, "You want some pancakes?" Tom nodded and sat up in bed, cracking a smile as he was passed a plate piled high with pancakes, syrup, and streaky bacon.

"That bacon smells so good."

"Uh oh, bad vegetarian."

"I had a KFC a couple weeks ago. I nearly came it was so good."

"Fucking hell, don't let Bill hear you say that, he's pissed off with you already." Georg warned, helping himself to another three pancakes

"I'll be sure to tell him who put the bacon on my plate." Tom had to stop himself from crying out with a moan as he took a bite of the crispy bacon, "Is he still pissed off because of Cotton Candy Sky last night?"

"Yeah. He's really hurt."

"Jesus. Has he forgotten what he did to me? I should be able to flush his head down the fucking toilet and have him say thank you.” Tom bit out, his jaw tensed and his relaxed demeanour stone dead.

“Yeah, well, get that down your neck and have a shower, we have to meet those VIPs in an hour. Bill said that we’re going to take them to a bar or something.” Tom grunted in response and rolled out of bed when he finished eating. He stumbled into the bathroom and pulled off his Calvin Klein’s, glancing at himself in the mirror with a grin. Stepping into the shower, he groaned as he felt the hot spray sluice over his body.

He absentmindedly thought about calling Emilia but reasoned that he would do it that evening instead when he had all the time in the world to catch up with her. He couldn’t wait to hear her voice again. He made a mental note to remember to Skype her; he desperately wanted to see her, see her beautiful face and her body…that body he dreamt about, the body that he was desperate to-

Tom’s eyes snapped open in shock when he realised the thick erection between his thighs.

Seizing the opportunity – quite literally – he gasped as he wrapped his hand around his throbbing cock, savouring the sensation he had been so desperate for, for so long. He had to steady himself with a hand planted on the tiled wall as he stroked his cock, shocked as his erection didn’t falter and wither away limply. Rather, it only got thicker and hotter in his hand and he dared to fist himself harder as he pictured Emilia in his favourite position – bent over her kitchen counter, showing off her round ass and juices dripping down her thighs…

“Fuck.” He ripped the tie out of his hair, almost painfully, letting it stick to his back as he revelled in the unfamiliar bliss of precum leaking out the head of his swollen cock.

Tom wanted to fuck her so bad. He had thought of taking her a hundred different ways but ultimately, he needed her to be bent over; he simply couldn’t get enough of her ass. He _dreamt_ of smacking it, leaning over to grab her tits as he pounded-

So unaccustomed was he to a release that it took him completely by surprise when suddenly his head started swimming and he shot his cum all over the wall.

Tom was still in a daze when he stumbled out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist.

He and Georg quickly got dressed and jogged down to the lobby where they met Bill and Gustav, who had already arranged for a taxi outside to take them to somewhere called the Peppermint Lounge.

“The Peppermint Lounge?” Tom asked, biting his tongue to stop a laugh.

“Yeah, so?”

“Are we going to a cocktail bar or a strip club?”

“Oh, shut up.” Bill scowled, folding his arms.

“How many girls are going to be there? Six?”

“Five,” Bill corrected Tom, “One of them couldn’t make it.”

There were the inevitable shrieks when they jumped out of the taxi to see the five girls waiting outside for them. Bill was, of course, the ultimate performer, embracing each of them while radiating a good dose of false enthusiasm. As Tom stepped up to greet each of them, he was so half asleep that it wasn’t until he stood before her that he realised.

The Ice Queen.

“Oh, it’s you!” He stuttered out, shocked as she smiled widely up at him, clearly in awe of him and flattered that he had remembered her.

“You remember me!”

“Of course,” Tom grinned, embracing the beauty again. She was lither than he remembered and they all piled into the cocktail bar, huddling into the booth beside the window. Bill beckoned Tom to take a seat beside him but instead, Tom manoeuvred himself to sit beside the Ice Queen. Who he couldn’t continue to call that.

“What’s your name?” He asked quietly, receiving a wide smile in return.

“My name is Irina!”

“Russian?”

“I am from Romania.”

“Oh, I’ve never been.”

“You should come! It is so beautiful.”

“Maybe you could show me around, huh?” Tom flashed her a grin and passed her a cocktail menu. She was the type of girl that he had always wanted but never been able to get; the type that always preferred Bill, somehow unable to see that they were about one cock down of being what he was looking for.

Tom was a flirt. He liked being a flirt, it was fun and he wasn’t afraid to admit that it gave him something of an ego boost to have beautiful women completely enamoured with him for reasons that he didn’t quite understand. He wasn’t completely down on himself, he accepted that he was moderately attractive but he would never understand why it seemed that more of their fans preferred him over Georg. His playboy persona seemed to drive a lot of fans into Bill’s ‘romantic’ direction but when his relationship with Ria was put out into the public domain, suddenly most fans seemed to conclude that Bill must be something of a sexual deviant since he was in his mid-twenties without ever going public with a romance whereas Tom was now the quiet, romantic hero.

It was rather bizarre. Tom much preferred pretending to be the playboy. It was more fun. More comfortable. It was far less stressful to present a false image to the public than to be yourself. As far as Tom was concerned, being yourself in front of the public was terrifying and for someone as private as he liked to be, there was no prospect worse than being yourself in front of the media.

“Oh, I don’t know what cocktail I want!” Irina giggled and Tom watched as she bit her full, bottom lip.

“How about a Screaming Orgasm?” Tom ignored the giggles of the girls around them as well as the disapproving and confused looks from his band mates.

“You’re so bad!” Irina laughed sweetly, slapping Tom’s arm playfully.

With Bill, of course taking charge and ordering for the whole table, Irina didn’t get her Screaming Orgasm, but instead was delivered a Mojito along with everyone else at the table. Thanks to a sharp kick under the table from Gustav, Tom suddenly realised that he was probably being a little rude so he made a half assed effort to talk to their other guests but his eye was drawn very much back to the girl sitting beside him. She looked like a painting, her form too perfect to have been created naturally. That sharply angled jaw line, those piercing blue eyes…she fascinated him.

“So, what did you guys think of the show last night?” Bill asked and Tom used every ounce of energy he had not to wince at the high-pitched squeals the rest of the girls shrieked out.

“It was amazing!” They all chorused.

“I’m going to the show in Lyon, will you be singing then too?” A brunette asked while Tom was taking a long drink and he shook his head.

“No, this was really a one-off.”

“Never to be repeated!” Bill laughed, “It was great but I really hated not singing. But maybe we’ll do some duets, what do you think?”

They both knew that Bill didn’t give a flying fuck about what these girls thought about them doing a duet together.

Tom would never get used to how Bill was always ‘on’. It was as if, as soon as he was in front of the camera or their fans, he became a completely different person, to the point where Tom didn’t even recognise the person who was talking. A prime example was the dirty dancing with the fans the night before; in what Tom called ‘real life’, there was _no way_ a girl’s hand would ever have strayed within a five-mile radius of Bill’s cock but with the fans, he was all for it. It was bizarre behaviour.

Tom and Irina were drinking, chatting, and laughing amongst themselves and were the first to have finished their drinks. He ordered them another Mojito, followed by a Cosmopolitan which they finished just as the rest of the table were finishing off their first drink. The drinks were strong and though Tom knew how to handle his drink, all he had had to eat was two pancakes and a shameful piece of bacon.

“I, ah, I’m going to have a cigarette,” Tom muttered as he slid out of the booth, earning himself a glare from Bill. He scowled right back as he headed outside and lit up a cigarette, taking a long drag and a deep sigh as he felt the cool, damp British air hit him. The alcohol had gone to his head more than he had realised.

“Hello.” At the sound of Irina’s voice, Tom snapped his head over so fast that he gave himself a snap headache.

“Hey,” Tom said casually, smiling softly as she stepped down the small steps. His eyes were drawn down to her long legs, elongated even more with a pair of black strappy heels, making him lick his lips, “I just needed a cigarette. Haven’t had one yet today. You want one?”

“Sure!” She smiled widely and Tom pulled out a cigarette, placing it between Irina’s lips, lighting it up.

“Thank you,” She murmured, “I wanted to thank you for yesterday, I can’t believe I got to sing with you on stage!” Tom grinned and inched closer to her.

“I know what you mean, I can’t believe I sang on stage either.”

“You were amazing!” She exclaimed, hardly able to contain her excitement. They were in the bar’s small outback garden. With it being only just midday, there was no one else one there with them in the secluded area and it was clear to Tom that, never mind singing on stage with him, Irina could barely believe that she was there, sharing a cigarette with him.

“You think?” He asked, jumping up a little to sit on the table as she stood before him.

“Everyone loved it, really. We were all going crazy about it outside afterwards, everyone was just so shocked but they loved it, you know? It was so special for us.” The excitement in her voice was obvious and quite endearing. Tom couldn’t help but smirk with the ego boost as he stubbed out his cigarette in an ash tray and lit up another one.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” He asked, absent mindedly aware that he was slurring his words. She giggled, shaking her head.

“No! Do you have a girlfriend?” She asked, nervously licking her lips and he grinned.

“Come here.” Tom dropped his cigarette, gripping her narrow hips as he gently pulled her towards him, biting his bottom lip as he held her, feeling the material of her skin tight, black lace dress on the pads of his calloused fingers. He grinned and drew her in closer, practically able to feel her heart hammering in her chest before he leaned in, pressing his lips against hers.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?” Irina jumped away from Tom in fright as they heard Bill behind them, “You,” he pointed at Irina, “get out. Go home.” She went to leave but Tom grabbed her wrist gently.

“No. You can stay,” He said softly to her before turning to Bill, “Don’t ruin her experience. She’s a _fan_ , remember?” Tom watched as Bill tensed his jaw.

“You really want to do this?”

“You wanna tell me why my wife left me?” Tom snarled as they spoke in German so Irina couldn’t understand them. With his jaw tensed in disapproval, Bill broke eye contact, knowing that he couldn’t answer him and so he held his hand up in defeat, retreating inside.

“You want another drink?” He went back inside for a moment to get them both a drink and handed one to her.

“A Screaming Orgasm. I thought you should try it.” The cringeworthily embarrassing innuendo apparently went straight over her head and she took a drink, being quiet for a moment for bursting out into a fit of laughter.

“I can’t believe that just happened!”

“You liked it though, didn’t you?” Tom said softly, reaching over to entwine her fingers with his own, watching as she smiled bashfully, “We should do some shots, what do you think?”

 Tom went over to the bar and got eight shots, bringing them outside.

“Quickest to do four?”

Tom wasn’t sure if they had finished all eight double shots of vodka. He was pretty sure they did but he was positive he had had five while she had downed three. Or was it the other way around?

Tom made a mental note to ask Irina when she took his cock out of her mouth.


	20. Cried A Bit More

**TOM KAULITZ AND RIA SOMMERFELD: REKINDLED LOVE?**

**_Ria Sommerfeld spotted at Tokio Hotel’s Hamburg show! Is the divorce still on?_ **

_The wife of Tokio Hotel guitarist, Tom Kaulitz, Ria Sommerfeld, has been spotted at their show in Hamburg._

_Mrs Kaulitz has just been pictured entering the backstage door of the Docks nightclub where Tokio Hotel are scheduled to play a concert in just a few hours. Our sources say that the pair haven’t seen each other since their split last year so does this spontaneous meeting hint at a possible reunion?_

_We will update this developing story as soon as we can!_

Emilia locked her iPad and checked her phone.

Still no messages from Tom.

That wasn’t like him. He usually either returned her messages as soon as he got them or called. The fact that it had been over a whole day since she left him a voicemail and a message without having received a reply was strange and, as she wandered downstairs to get a drink, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. The online article hadn’t helped, either.

Emilia had been comforting herself with the thought that he had probably taken advantage of the two days off between the London and Hamburg shows and gone partying, getting so wasted that he wasn’t capable of contacting her. And of course, he had to then prepare today for the show. But when she was browsing the showbiz section of the  _Bild_  website, she felt her heart sink as she saw the photographs of Tom’s ex-wife heading backstage into the venue.

Emilia hadn’t ever seen a picture of her before. She hadn’t been interested in finding out anything about the woman who had clearly broken Tom’s heart. He had never told her why they had split up but Emilia could quite clearly see that it wasn’t he who had ended it.

She was surprised when she saw Ria’s picture. She didn’t look anything like Emilia expected. She hadn’t ever pictured Ria in her mind’s eye or anything but found herself realising that she was surprised to see that Ria was almost model-like in her appearance. A beautiful figure with the face to match. It was easy to see why Tom had married her.

Emilia took a seat at the dining table, a glass of orange juice in her hand. Tom and Bill’s house was beautiful and with its swimming pool, balcony hot tub, state of the art kitchen and home cinema in the basement, the place had not come cheap. Obviously, Tom’s financial position when he’d bought the house was a lot better than the situation he was in now where an eighty-five-thousand-euro fine was enough to make him cry on her shoulder.

Emilia looked around herself and tried to relax.

 _She_  was the one here in his California home.  _She_  was the one he went out of his way to protect.  _She_ was the one he said that he was in love with.

Maybe those reassurances would have worked a little better if she hadn’t just seen photographs of his ex-wife going  _backstage_  at their show. That could only mean one thing: she was going to see him. But why?

Her stomach started doing cartwheels and she pushed her glass away in disgust.

She checked the clock on the kitchen wall. It was two o’clock in the afternoon in Germany. Officially, Tom had around an hour before he had to start working.

Emilia hesitated as she picked up her phone. What if he felt that she was bugging him when he needed space from people? She knew well that Tom was easily overwhelmed and she didn’t want to intrude on his relaxation time before he had to start interacting with fans. But, this was the only window that she had to get through to him for the next eleven hours. She simply couldn’t spend the next eleven hours wondering what was going on between him and his ex-wife.

She grabbed her phone.

_“Hey.”_

“Are you ok?”

 _“Yeah, why?”_ Emilia frowned at the response. She was used to hearing warmth in his voice.

“No reason…how’s prep for the show going?”

_“Yeah, it’s good.”_

“I had a great sleep last night, your bed-”

_“Did you actually want something? I don’t have time for small talk.”_

“Tom, what-”

_“I have to go. Bye.”_

As she was hung up on, Emilia just stared at her phone, bewildered.

She could hardly believe how cold he had been towards her.

Emilia was no fool. One didn’t need to be a genius to know that Ria had been in the room with him. He didn’t say her name. His voice hadn’t softened. He hadn’t shown any hint of affection. Nothing.

Suddenly Emilia wondered what on Earth she was doing. What she was doing in L.A., in this house. Was Tom trying to keep her out of the way while he reunited with his wife?

She knew that was absurd. Who sends their girlfriend halfway around the world just so they could fuck their wife? It was too over the top even for Tom.

Emilia’s mind was in overdrive and there was nothing she could do. She wanted to know why Ria was there, in Hamburg. She wanted to know why Tom was apparently avoiding her.

Tears stung the back of her eyes as she turned away from the sun rising over the large back yard that the kitchen looked out on. She had left Germany, and Tom, only a few days ago and it was like things had just changed as soon as she did. Emilia didn’t know what had happened between her getting on that plane and now. He had been sweet, caring and loving and now…now it was like he just didn’t give a fuck. And now he was meeting with his ex-wife? Without telling her? Surely that wasn’t the marker of a loving relationship. Just before Emilia left Germany, Tom told her for the first time that he loved her.

She wasn’t sure anymore why he had bothered.

Emilia had given up her job and moved to California because she saw how much it meant to Tom to protect her and put her in a safe place. His anxiety and frustration made it plain that he couldn’t stomach the thought of her continuing to live and work in Berlin when he wasn’t there to protect her. That act of kindness, of thoughtfulness wasn’t entirely unexpected to Emilia because Tom was just that kind of person. He was sweet and quiet, thoughtful. He thought he was shallow and void of a lot of emotion but that just couldn’t be further from the truth. He was a far better person than he gave himself credit for.

Where had that man gone? The man she knew was certainly not the one she had just spoken to on the phone.

Contrary to what she had told Tom, Emilia’s sister, Sofie, had not been at all impressed by the impromptu trip to America. Sofie was rather protective of her surrogate mother and had always had something of a temper especially when it came to change. She hadn’t understood why Emilia had to go straightaway and thought it rather odd that Tom had insisted on it. Naturally, Sofie had concluded that Tom was a control freak and was forcing her to go to America.

She didn’t know about her boss and Emilia intended to keep it that way.

After a long conversation, Emilia had finally managed to convince her little sister that it was nothing more than a holiday that Tom wished to treat her to. She had even offered to trade in her business class plane ticket for two in economy but Sofie had turned her down. She was in the middle of her dissertation and could only just about spare the time to travel up to Berlin for the concert there the following month.

Emilia thought about calling her but she didn’t want to add fuel to any fire that might be raging. She understood Sofie wasn’t likely to take a shine to any man in her life and telling her that Tom’s wife had come to visit him while she was out of the country wasn’t going to help.

*

“You’re an idiot.”

“I know.”

“You’re a twat.”

“I know.”

“You’re a dickhead.”

“G, I’m agreeing with you.”

“All you’ve been going on about for the past two months is how crazy you are about Emilia and then you go and get a blowjob from some random whore? What’s wrong with you?”

Tom held his head in his hands. He had a splitting headache, his stomach was turning over and he had had maybe three hours of sleep.

“I didn’t  _plan_  it, ok? I was on a high from the London show and I was drunk!”

“Don’t pretend like you think that’s a valid excuse.” Georg scoffed, earning himself an eyeroll.

“Why are you getting so mad? I didn’t cheat on  _you_.”

“You have potentially ruined the best thing that’s ever happened to and you’re acting like I’m the one in the wrong!” Georg shouted, storming out of the room, and slamming the door behind him. Tom waited until he left before bursting into tears, biting on his wrist to stop himself from crying out. The pain touched every inch of his body. He never knew how powerful the pain of regret could be. The only thing that gave him just a molecule of comfort was the fact that after she sucked his cock, he came to his senses, shoved it back in his pants, mumbled an apology and ran off.

He had gone back to the hotel, grabbed his bag, and headed straight to the airport. They were supposed to drive to Hamburg in their tour buses but he couldn’t bear to be around his band mates and be forced to explain what the fuck he had done. So, he flew to Hamburg on his own.

Tom hadn’t flown economy in a long, long time. He had no private area in which to cry quietly to himself. So, he had to suppress it. And somehow, he kept it together. At the airport, on the plane, in the taxi…but when he arrived at the Hilton hotel and paid way over the odds for a last-minute room, he broke down the second he closed the door behind him. He had cried and cried and then cried a bit more.

He was disgusted with himself. That wasn’t him. That wasn’t who he was, he wasn’t a cheat. He had never cheated, ever. Even before he was with Ria and had a friend with benefits, he wouldn’t fuck someone else at the same time. He was a  _nice_  guy, he wasn’t the douchebag who got blowjobs from random whores in dirty bar bathroom stalls.

Tom had messaged the guys. They hadn’t been best pleased when they found out that he’d gone to Hamburg without them. He spent an agonising night alone in the hotel room, switching between being on the edge of calling Emilia to confess everything and blocking her number to stop her kind messages and sweet voicemails.

He could barely read her  _‘I love you sweetie’_  message through his streaming tears.

There was no way that she would want to be with him anymore once she found out what he did. He couldn’t possibly keep it from her. Tom knew that Emilia deserved better than him. She deserved a good man. Someone who would look after her and would never betray her.

How could he have done that to her? Georg was right, she  _was_  the best thing that had ever happened to him. She was so perfect for her. So kind and generous with all the love she had in her heart. All she had ever wanted to do, since the moment they met, was help him. All she ever tried to do was build him up; give him the positivity and the motivation that he needed to live and love. She was clever; the beautifully intimate, intelligent conversations they had late at night when they put the world to rights were what he loved, so much. How he adored waking up in her bed to see her sleeping soundly beside him, a small smile on her lips. How could he have done this to her? There was no one else who deserved this less. All Emilia had ever done was give him love and now he had thrown it back in her face.

He couldn't have been more disgusted with himself.

“Mr Kaulitz?” Tom turned to see a guy who worked for the Docks peering around the door.

“Tom.”

“Tom. There’s a woman downstairs to see you. She said her name is Ria?” Tom closed his eyes, sighing deeply, sniffing hard, trying to gather his senses. What with everything that had happened and was happening, he hadn’t given Ria's visit a second thought.

“Yeah, yeah, send her in.”

When she sauntered in, Tom could barely look at her. He stared at the ground. He didn’t give a flying fuck that he was an absolute mess. He didn’t care that his hair was all over the place or that his clothes probably stank. In fact, his head was so not in the moment that his heart didn’t skip a beat as she stood before him, like it had done the last time he saw her.

“Have a seat,” He invited and Ria sat in the battered armchair beside him.

“You look tired,” She didn’t say it unkindly and the note of concern in her voice was a small comfort.

“I haven’t slept. Had a lot on my mind.” For the first time, he looked up to see her properly. She wasn’t all dressed up like she had been when she came to his apartment a few weeks earlier. In just a pair of skinny jeans and an oversized hoody, Tom wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her so casual out in public. She wasn’t even wearing any makeup and her hair was scraped back into a messy ponytail.

“Listen…I’m sorry about before. I’m not here to mess you around this time, honestly.” Ria’s voice was soft, tinged with a sorry sincerity and Tom sat up a little straighter, swallowing hard, “I shouldn’t have made you wait so long to hear this, I’m sorry. I told Meg because she’s my best friend…she should never have told Bill, I’m so sorry about that, too. God, this is just a big fucking mess, isn’t it?” She shook her head, taking a long, deep, steadying sigh.

“Are you ok? Do you want a drink?”

“No, no. I’m fine.” She wasn’t, that much was obvious. While she was shaking, Tom daren’t move for fear of scaring her off. He felt a great sense of fear suddenly envelope him.

This was it.

“When you went to Europe for Bill’s solo stuff, I was due my period…but I was late. And you know me, regular as clockwork so I went to the drug store and got like five tests,” Ria took a deep breath, closing her eyes.

“You were pregnant?” Tom could barely get the words out but they came out as a bewildered whisper. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t that, “Why didn’t you tell me when you found out?”

“I didn’t want to tell you over the phone or Skype or whatever…you had to hear this in person, you know? I wanted to hold you, feel your reaction when I told you that you were doing to be a dad.” Tom nodded, blinking furiously to hold back the tears. He couldn’t speak, the lump in his throat wouldn’t let him, “I started planning how I was going to tell you and I was going to put one of the tests in a gift box and give it to you over dinner,” Ria laughed, “Silly, right?” Tom shook his head furiously.

“No! Not silly…I’d have liked that.”

“So, I started getting ahead of myself and I ordered the cutest baby clothes and I even started looking at properties because I figured we wouldn’t want to live with Bill when the baby arrived…” She trailed off, sniffing hard, not wanting to break down before having told her story, “Anyway, it was the day before you were due back and I was so excited, you have no idea! I couldn’t wait to see the look on your face when I told you.” Tom reached over to take her hand. He knew what was coming. He just hoped that, in some way, he was wrong.

“You can do it. You’re strong. Tell me.”

“I had a nap in the afternoon but I woke up with the weirdest feeling ache in my back. I didn’t really think anything of it until I went to the bathroom and when I stood up, there was blood in the toilet. So, I called a taxi and went straight to the hospital.” Tom squeezed Ria’s hand tight, feeling entirely helpless as she held her head in her other hand, breathing deeply, her leg shaking, “I had a miscarriage,” She finally let the dam burst and floods of tears streamed down her face. Tom drew her into him, sitting her on his lap as he held her while she shook with cries. He tried to be strong for her, but he couldn’t, it was all too much.

They held each other tight for a moment just crying in pain.

Tom was just in complete shock. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. He had imagined every possible scenario, but this certainly hadn’t been one of them. Affairs, crime, lesbianism…he had thought of it all but not this. Never this.

With his face bright red and tears still streaming down his face, Tom looked up and took Ria’s face in his hands, forcing her to look him in the eye.

“I’m so sorry. I just went crazy, I couldn’t  _bear_  to tell you what had happened, so I left.”

“I could have taken care of you.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Please don’t apologise,” Tom murmured, wiping tears away from Ria’s cheek, tucking her fly away hairs behind her ear, “You don’t have anything to apologise for.  _I’m_  sorry. I’m sorry that you didn’t feel like you could tell me. I should have tried harder to find you. I shouldn’t have thought that you would leave without a reason. I-”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Ria cut him off with a hand over his mouth, “You were an amazing husband, truly. This wasn’t anything to do with you, it was me.”

“But I-”

“Don’t try and take responsibility for this, Tom, please. None of this was your fault. I should have told you the truth. It was your child too, I should never…” She sighed, dropping her head onto his shoulder as he rubbed her back, trying to comfort her. They held each other for a moment, their arms around each other as they tried to gather themselves. Ria clung to Tom’s back while he caressed hers.

When his phone started to ring, they both jumped.

“You should answer it,” Ria sniffed, “It might be Bill.” Swallowing hard, Tom nodded and shakily answered his phone, not thinking to check who it was.

“Hey.”

 _“Are you ok?”_  Tom froze, almost in fear as he heard Emilia’s soft voice, laced with concern, as always.

“Yeah, why?” He didn’t intend for his voice to be so harsh but, in trying not to burst into tears, it was the only tone that he could come out with.

_“No reason…how’s prep for the show going?”_

“Yeah, it’s good.”

_“I had a great sleep last night, your bed-”_

“Did you actually want something? I don’t have time for small talk.”

_“Tom, what-”_

“I have to go. Bye.”

Tom hung up and flung his phone across the sofa, turning his attention back to Ria, who was still in his lap.

“I will never let you down like that again, I promise you.” He murmured, taking her back in his arms.


	21. 4 Women. 1 Problem.

“This doesn’t change anything.” Bill shrugged. They had finished their first meet and greets and had just a few minutes before the show. Ria had gone to a nearby bar to clear her head, have a cigarette and relax before meeting again with Tom after the show. After the meet and greet, Tom had taken Bill aside into a small room in the Hamburg venue to tell him everything that had happened, thinking that Bill would take his side.

Unfortunately for him, that wasn’t the case.

“It changes _everything_!” Tom shrieked, completely incredulous. He simply couldn’t understand why Bill couldn’t see it his way.

“No, it doesn’t! The fact remains that you love Emilia! That can’t just be switched off!” Bill pointed out but it merely earnt him an eyeroll.

“Infatuation. That’s all it was. Infatuation. She’s a great girl but she was just…a source of comfort.” Tom shrugged, as if it was completely obvious. Obvious, it may have been, but it certainly wasn’t to Bill.

“A _source of comfort?_ You were planning on buying a house with her!” They were both talking to each other as if the other was stupid.

“I got ahead of myself,” Tom shrugged again, shaking his head, “I love Ria. I’ve never stopped loving her. Emilia was…” he sighed, “a mistake.” Bill scoffed, shaking his head.

“She was no mistake. Don’t talk bullshit to me, Tom. Maybe I’d buy that if she was just some casual fuck, but she wasn’t! You told me yourself that you two had sex _once_ for all of two minutes. Your relationship was based on _love_ and, and…a mutual respect! And-”

“It was based on me needing an outlet for my stress.” Tom interrupted, “It was based on me going to her place, eating pizza, and crying about my problems. Most of which have completely disappeared now."

"So, in your mind, all your problems have vanished now Ria told you the truth? Surely you don't believe that? That's bullshit and you know it!"

"You weren’t there, you don’t understand.”

“I don’t _understand_? Believe me, I understand! I understand _you_ and I was there! I saw the way you looked at her, the way you talked to and about her. You want to tell me that that was just infatuation? That it wasn’t _love_? I know love when I see it, Tom.”

“Things have changed. Ria’s told me the truth now and that changes things! It changes how I see Ria and that then changes how I see Em.”

“So just because Ria told you why she left, that’s it? Everything is fine again? You’re going to call off the divorce and pretend like the last year didn’t happen?” Bill simply couldn’t understand where Tom was coming from. He couldn’t comprehend how Ria’s confession could possibly negate months and months of unnecessary heartache.

“Pretty much.” Tom forced a smile.

“You’re kidding, right? Doesn’t it bother you that Ria went nearly a whole year without telling you that she had a fucking miscarriage?” Tom’s face darkened at Bill’s apparent trivialisation of the matter.

“It was traumatic for her.”

“It was _your_ baby too! You had a right to know! You really want to be with a woman who runs at the first sign of trouble? Who wouldn’t tell you something like this? She ended your marriage and didn’t tell you. You filed for divorce and she didn’t tell you. She was willing to let your marriage burn for no reason. If you think she loves you then you’re a fucking idiot because she is nothing but a manipulative, _nasty_ little bitch.” Bill gasped as Tom smacked him across the face.

“Shut the fuck up.” Tom snarled, watching as Bill slumped in a small wooden chair.

“Have you forgotten how happy Emilia makes you?” Tom frowned as Bill tried a different angle.

“Why don’t you get it? Shall I say it slowly and simply so that you understand? Emilia made me happy because Ria made me sad. Well now I understand why Ria made me sad and now she makes me happy again. Emilia was like a bandage, right? And now I’m all healed up.”

“So…what, are you telling me that Ria is a _wound_? Are you fucking high? And if you’re being serious, then _Emilia_ is the one who fucking healed you and Ria is just a piece of damaged skin! Which actually, is pretty fucking accurate!”

“ _No_ because, once the wound has healed, you don’t keep wearing the bandage, do you?”

“Why are you being like this? You love Emilia, you know you do.”

“Ria’s my wife. I owe it to her…to our marriage to make it work.”

“You don’t have to be in a marriage that you don’t want to be in.”

“But I _do_.”

“Ok. Ok, if you had to choose between them based _solely_ on their personalities, who would you pick?”

“Ria.”

“You’re lying.”

“No, I’m _not_. I’d choose Ria!”

“You’re lying!”

“Who the fuck do you think you are? You don’t get to tell me that I’m lying!”

“I liked Ria. I did. But she is the least sympathetic person I’ve ever met. You think she’ll be as understanding as Emilia was about the fact that you can’t have sex?”

“I got a blowjob on Monday. I think I’ll be fine.”

“You got a _blowjob_? From that fucking Romanian girl? Fucking hell, _what is wrong with you_?”

“Nothing anymore, apparently.”

“Oh. Oh, I get it now.”

“What?”

“You feel like you’re a terrible person for cheating on Emilia and now you feel like you don’t deserve her so now you’re running back to Ria, convincing yourself that everything she did was completely justified.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

Bill shook his head, seeing that he wasn’t about to get through to Tom any time soon.

“Come on, we’ve got to go to the soundcheck.”

Tom begrudgingly followed Bill downstairs.

The entire show was a blur. All Tom could think about was Emilia and Ria. Ria and Emilia. Ria. Emilia. Ria. Emilia. Ria. Emilia…

Before Tom proposed to Ria, he had thought about it for a long time. It had first crossed his mind around six months before finally doing it. He took that time to really think about whether he and Ria were the real thing. If Ria really was the one for him. If their marriage could last for the rest of their lives. He had concluded that the answer was yes. She had made him so happy; yes, she could be overly clingy, insecure, and materialistic but she was also an incredible free spirit – so much fun and she loved with every inch of her heart. She wasn’t the first woman that he had ever loved but he hadn’t ever loved anyone so much.

But Emilia…god. Emilia was everything that Ria wasn’t. She always, _always_ , put him first. It didn’t matter what the issue was, she was always there for him. Always ready to listen to him, hold him and make him feel like he was a person worthy of affection. She was entirely selfless when it came to him, from the moment they met. They complemented each other beautifully and she had awoken a part of him that he’d never known – a part of him that wasn’t all celebrity but human. He felt like a normal person.

But did he love Emilia?

He thought he did. But if he loved her, would he have cheated on her?

If he cheated on her, was Bill right? Did cheating on her mean that he didn’t deserve her? Surely the answer to that had to be yes.

As they finished the show, Tom wondered if the fans would be willing to pay to see it if they knew that he did it all on automatic.

When they headed back upstairs, Ria was waiting in one of the back rooms, clutching a Starbucks cup which no doubt held a sugar free caramel latte with half skinny, half soya milk with whipped cream and cocoa sprinkles.

Emilia had a straight Americano.

While Bill and the Gs headed over to one of the other rooms, Tom closed the door behind him and took Ria in his arms. She moved in for a kiss but Tom moved his head.

“I’m sorry…I just…I haven’t told Emilia, you know? So, I-”

“It’s ok,” Ria said quietly with a small smile, “How long before you have to leave?”

“Couple of hours,” Tom shrugged, taking her hand, and leading her over to the sofa, “I thought we could talk about us. I don’t-”

“I’m not expecting us to just go back to normal or anything but I would be so honoured if you gave me another chance.”

“I don’t know if this is what I want,” Tom sighed, dropping his head, “This is all so sudden and…I need to get my head straight first.” With his throat suddenly tight and his breathing becoming laboured, Tom jumped to his feet, “I, uh, I’m sorry. I need some time to think. You can…you can stay here.”

Tom ran out of the room and suddenly realised that he was trapped. He couldn’t go outside to be mobbed by fans, he couldn’t go into the next room to be with his bandmates. So, he locked himself in the bathroom.

He yanked down his pants and sat on the toilet with his head in his hands and thought briefly about how much time in the last year he had spent in such a position. His head was spinning and his sight was glazing over. He started breathing hard, feeling as if he couldn’t get enough oxygen into his lungs. His hair was too hot on his neck and his feet were freezing cold. His hands were locked into position and trembling but he was too spaced out to pay them much mind.

He caught sight of himself in the mirror on the back of the door and smirked breathlessly.

There were so many girls just outside who would cut off their left arm to go to bed with him but if they could see them in that moment, he knew they would run away screaming. He was almost green, he was so pale. His face was dripping with sweat and his hair stuck, damp, to his head.

He looked a mess.

He had one girl here in Hamburg. Another girl in Los Angeles. And another random whore who was god-knows-where.

Ok, focus. It was only the first two that mattered.

“Mr Kaulitz?” It was one of the Treehouse Ticketing staff.

“Tom!”

“Sorry, Tom. There’s a woman here to see you.” Tom rolled his eyes.

“I know that, she’s been here for hours!”

“No, another woman.”

“What?” Tom frowned, confused, “Who?”  As he stood up and pulled his pants back up, flushing the toilet, he couldn’t hear what they said. He stepped outside, breathing hard, still trying to compose himself, “Who is it?”

“I…I’m sorry, I didn’t get her name but she said to tell you that she knows Emilia?”

“Send her up.”

When the pretty brunette came up the stairs with a cold, steely look of determination on her face, Tom’s heart sank.

“Sofie?”

“You’re a dirty piece of shit.”

“I-”

“No, no. I’m going to speak now,” She stepped towards him in her heels, unbearably loud on the wooden floor and Tom’s entire body tensed, “You,” She reached out and jabbed him in the chest with his forefinger, “Are a dirty piece of shit.”

“Look, I don’t-”

“You sent my sister to America so you could fuck your wife.” It was the calmness in her voice that was the most disconcerting part, “She told me all about your little plan to buy a house in your precious little Los Angeles. Yeah, as if you would. I saw the newspaper articles about you and Em. You used her to get a bit of publicity for your shit show of a failing career, didn’t you?”

“What? No! I-”

“Shut the _fuck_ up. You saw an overweight girl and thought, ‘oh great! This bitch will get me in the pissing papers and sell a few more copies of my piss awful new album’. You’re a fucking cock. I wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire.”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Oh, don’t I? Is your wife not here?”

“Well, yes, she is-”

“And does Em know about it?”

“N-no-”

“So what part of what I’m saying suggests that I don’t know what I’m talking about?”

“You need to go.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Not until you tell me _exactly_ what’s going on!” Sofie crossed her arms, making it plain that she wasn’t going anywhere.

“Try to see where I’m coming from here! I’ve got Ria in that room, my bandmates in another room, you out here and Em in California! If you’re such a fucking expert, _tell me what I’m supposed to do_!”

“Don’t think that you can play me too,” She murmured, her voice cold. Tom’s tensed his jaw, stopping himself from saying something that he knew he would regret.

“Listen, I love your sister, ok? At least…” Tom trailed off with a sigh, “I thought I did. But things have changed!”

“What? What’s changed?”

“I didn’t know why my wife had left me. She never told me. I _assumed_ that she’d had an affair and fucked off. She came here today to tell me that she left me last year because she’d had a miscarriage and now I’m _extremely_ confused, ok? So, if you’re such an expert, why don’t you tell me what I’m supposed to do!” As he finished, exasperated, Tom looked up to see the bewildered look on Sofie’s face.

“So, you have a girl in there waiting for you to figure out whether you’re going to choose her or not and another girl banished-”

“Oh, she hasn’t been fucking _banished_ -”

“-to California, no doubt wondering the same?”

“Em doesn’t know Ria is here.”

“Grow up, it’s all over _Bild_. Trust me, she knows.” Sofie bit out while Tom’s heart sank. He figured he had time. Apparently not.

“What do I do?” Tom asked, his desperation rising.

“Well first you can stop acting like a child. Then you can make a decision. _Right now._ ”

“I can’t-”

“I am not moving until you make a decision. Pick my sister, don’t pick my sister, that’s not my concern. My concern is that you make a fucking decision.”

“But-”

“Now.”


	22. Prize At A Raffle

It was a beautiful night in Berlin. It was cool, the sky was clear and the air was calm. Three weeks had passed since Tokio Hotel performed their show in Hamburg and Tom hadn’t had an anxiety attack since, which was a welcome relief. They didn’t have a show the next day and so had decided to spend the night in Berlin and had booked a luxurious hotel in the western borough of Charlottenburg. Bill had insisted on his own room and so Tom had booked an upgrade for himself. He had a junior suite with a separate lounge area, a Jacuzzi in the bathroom and, most importantly, a deluxe King-sized bed.

Tom was excited. Though he was more nervous than anything else as he lay awkwardly on the bed, flicking through the television channels in a bid to distract himself. He checked his phone. 00:13.

She was supposed to be there at midnight and he had been fretting for the past thirteen minutes that maybe she had changed her mind. Maybe she had decided that she really didn’t want him anymore. Though Bill and the Gs had tried reassuring him that his freak-out, confusion and raging anxiety was only to be expected given the situation he had been in, Tom was nonetheless scared that she may have seen his temporary indecision as too much. As proof that he didn’t want her as much as she wanted him, which simply couldn’t be further from the truth.

Feeling sick with nerves, Tom went to go to the bathroom when he heard a knock at the door. With shaking legs, he went over and opened it, his heart hammering as he saw her stand before him. In a long, black faux fur coat and a pair of thigh high black heels, she looked incredible.

“You…you look…” Tom trailed off with a hard swallow, trying to regain himself, “Come in.” With a smile, she bit her bottom lip and came into the room.

“The show was amazing. _You_ were amazing.” She spoke softly, rather uncharacteristically as she took a seat on the small sofa.

“I saw you in the crowd,” Tom grinned bashfully at the memory as he got two bottles of beer from the minibar, “You were wearing something else.”

“Can’t wear a fur coat to a concert,” She smiled as Tom sat beside her, taking the opportunity to lean over and kiss him softly, briefly, “Come here,” She whispered, taking a small, blue pill out of her pocket, looking up into Tom’s hazy eyes as she slipped it into his mouth. He couldn’t help but shiver as he felt her fingers on his lips.

“But are you sure you-”

With a finger to his lips, cutting him off, she stood up and dropped the fur coat to the floor.

“Fuck…Em…” He breathed, swallowing hard. If he thought she’d looked incredible before, he wouldn’t even know how to describe the vision standing before him. With a plunging black bra beneath a tight, black sheer top worn with a pair of high waisted panties, the only skin on show were her deliciously thick, creamy thighs but Tom wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anyone look so sexy. With her heaving chest, round ass and wavy, silky hair tumbling over her shoulders, Tom was practically salivating.

Emilia bent down to take off her heels but Tom grabbed her arm.

“Please…leave them on.” He said, looking up at her with nothing but lust in his eyes. He stood and wrapped his arms around her, finally kissing her hard, groaning as he pressed against her. He gripped her thigh, wrapping it firmly around his waist as they fell back onto the bed.

Breaking their kiss, he sat up, running a hand through his hair as he ripped the tie out.

“Do you have any pot?”

“Yeah,” Tom replied, digging his tin out of his pocket. He pulled out a pre-rolled joint and quickly lit it, “Gonna get in trouble for smoking in the hotel room…I seriously don’t give a fuck.” He laughed, kneeling between Emilia’s thighs as he leaned down to press the joint between her full lips, licking his own as she took a long drag. As she did, Tom groped her bare thigh with one hand and, with the other, inched up that sheer top, running the pads of his fingers over her bare stomach.

“So soft,” He whispered as he took the spliff from Emilia’s lips, taking an indulgent moment to kiss her before groaning again as he took a drag for himself, “You’re so fucking sexy,” He moaned as he watched her take the top off, revealing her breasts only barely contained in a skimpy, plunging black bra. But Emilia merely scoffed with a grin as she sat up to draw Tom back in for a long, hard, passionate kiss.

“You don’t even know how fucking hot _you_ are, do you?” She whispered against his lips and he felt his whole body coarse with fire as she ran her hands over his chest, feeling the muscles that were finally growing back. As her touch wandered around to his back and gripped his shoulder blades, Tom simply couldn’t resist groaning into their kiss. He could feel the appreciation for his body radiating from her touch and…well fuck, could there be anything more erotic?

Tom stubbed out the joint in a glass on the bedside table and wrapped his arms around Emilia, rolling them over so that she was straddling him.

“Oh!” Emilia gasped as she sat on Tom’s hips.

“What? Are you-” Tom was cut off by Emilia grinding down on his erection, “ _Oh_!” Tom looked up at her with a grin while she looked down, her eyelids heavy as she bit her bottom lip. She took a moment to grind down on his erection, still woefully in his jeans, and as Tom squeezed her hips, he was more than happy to indulge her. He couldn’t even think how long it had been since he had properly been able to really indulge and torture himself so deliciously in a long, drawn out session.

“Fuck…” Clearly rather reluctantly, Emilia got up off Tom’s lap and moved down the bed, settling herself between his legs. Tom had to remind himself to breathe as she looked up at him with those beautifully big doe eyes and unzipped his jeans, taking his rock-hard cock into her hand. He grunted as she wrapped her hand around it and started stroking slowly, almost teasing him for a moment before wrapping her lips around the head.

“Oh, motherfuck…” Tom weaved his fingers through Emilia’s thick hair as she sucked him further into her warm, wet, painfully _hot_ mouth. His cock was certainly bigger than average but not anything spectacular. What was his crowning glory was the girth; Tom had always rather prided himself on being pretty damn thick. As well as always leaving his women satisfied, it seemed as if everything was so _tight_ on him, Emilia’s mouth included.

His legs jerked involuntarily as she suddenly deep throated him, taking every inch he had into her mouth and down her throat.

“ _Fuck_!” He cried out, earning himself a giggle from Emilia as she gasped while sitting up. Not that she had much time to breathe; Tom pulled her right back in for a long, deep kiss, lying her on top of him so that he could shamelessly grope her ass that he simply adored. Not breaking their kiss, he unclasped her bra and they both gasped as her breasts pressed against his hard chest. He rolled them over again, lying Emilia down on her back.

He kicked his jeans off and hissed at the friction of the bed on his raging erection. He hooked his fingers into her panties and slid them off her legs, throwing them aimlessly across the room before gripping her legs, still gorgeously encased in her thigh high heels, and spread them wide. With a smirk, he licked her fingers and started massaging her clit, already swollen, slowly but deliberately and her moans were immediate, making his boner throb almost painfully. Emilia was sitting up on her elbows, watching him but when Tom trailed his fingers down to slip his two middle fingers inside her, she dropped back. Expertly as usual, Tom stroked upwards, finding her swollen G spot almost immediately and revelled in her desperate groans as he started rubbing her clit with his other hand.

“Oh…Tom…” She whimpered, her hands fisting the sheets as she grinded back against him.

“So fucking wet,” He slapped her swollen pussy playfully, shivering as he heard her high-pitched gasp in response, “Here, maybe this will get you even wetter…” He grabbed one of her legs, still wearing the thigh high boots, over his shoulder as he leaned in and, with two fingers still buried inside her, he started licking her clit.

“Holy mother of fuck!” Emilia cried out, moaning loudly, writhing, and grinding hard against his fingers as she came hard. Tom groaned as she all but screamed and he kept fucking her with his fingers through her orgasm as he trailed back up her body, kissing her deeply as she tried to catch her breath, “You’re incredible…fuck, I need you Tom…I really do.”

“How do you…?”

“Just like this…just…” Emilia gasped as Tom pushed the head of his cock inside her.

“Like that?” He smirked, feeling the sweat on his forehead already as his long hair hung in front of his face.

“Yeah…oh fuck,” She groaned, rolling her eyes back as he slowly sank every last inch inside her. They both took a moment to entwine their fingers and adjust to each other. Tom panted hard as he leaned down to kiss her, revelling in the incredible sensation of her tight wetness enveloping him.

“Tom,” Emilia paused to choke on a gasp, “I love you, babe.”

“Oh,” Tom gasped with a grin, “I love you too.” As they kissed, he could no longer resist the urge and he started moving, thrusting inside her. With her moans spurring him on, Tom started fucking Emilia harder, groping her heaving breasts, pinching a nipple hard between his fingers.

“H-harder…” She moaned and he responded by grabbing her thighs, wrapping her legs firmly around his waist before sitting up slightly.

“You want it harder?” He smirked, leaning back a little to rub his thumb teasingly over his swollen clit, “Huh?” He prompted, amused by the fact that she could barely speak and he smacked her thigh.

“Yes! Yes…” Emilia choked out and Tom gripped her hips, steadying himself as he started doing exactly as she asked. Grabbing her boots, he started hammering inside her.

Their moans, groans, growls, and screams filled the room – and probably Bill’s next door – as Tom fucked her hard. He groped and squeezed her breasts for leverage and he knew that he wasn’t going to last long. But damn, he really didn’t care. He looked down to see the pleasurable desperation in Emilia’s eyes and though it pained him, he ripped his gaze away. Tom _really_ didn’t want it to be over just yet.

Tom leaned back over her and kissed her neck as he kept pounding inside her. She clawed at his back, whimpering with every thrust. He growled in pure satisfaction when her whimpers turned into a guttural shriek as he dropped his hand down and started rubbing her clit feverishly.

“You gonna cum for me again, huh? Are you?” He groaned into her ear, sucking her lobe.

“I…I… _fuck_!” Emilia cried and Tom faltered on his rhythm as she tensed that sweet pussy around his throbbing cock, shrieking in his ear as she came. Tom kept fucking her through her orgasm but he couldn’t hold back any longer. He sank his teeth hard into her neck and roared as he pumped his cum deep inside her.

They were hot. They were sweaty. Their hair was all over the place and they just plain looked a right mess.

But as Tom collapsed beside Emilia, neither of them gave a flying fuck.

The couple took a moment to catch their breath before Tom eventually spoke.

“I should have a shower.”

“Yeah,” Emilia said, still short of breath, “me too.”

Still, neither of them moved but their hands found each other’s and after a few more minutes, Tom drew Emilia into him, wrapping his arms around her as he kissed her softly.

“You didn’t mind about the pill, right?” He asked tentatively, interrupting their gentle kiss.

“Why would I mind? You got an erection, who gives a fuck how you got it,” She said quietly against his lips, running the back of her hand over his cheek, “You’ve gained weight since I last saw you,” She said with a smile, “You look great. You know…I was thinking about maybe going on a diet.”

“No…you don’t need to. You’re so beautiful,” Tom whispered into her ear, flicking his tongue against the lobe.

For the first time in over a year, as he held Emilia in his arms and kissed her lazily, Tom was honestly and truly content. He was so used to having a headache, along with a tight stomach that he hadn’t realised how blissful it was to be relaxed.

There was no headache anymore, no tight stomach and, most importantly, no emasculation.

“Don’t say that,” She murmured, suddenly turning away from him a little. He released his hold on her and she edged away slightly.

“What? Did I do something?”

“Let’s not get into the pillow talk, ok?” Emilia said quietly and Tom couldn’t quite work out her tone.

“What are you-”

“Having sex doesn’t mean that everything’s been erased, Tom. It doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten everything you said, everything you _did_.” Her voice was quiet, calm, but it didn’t stop the cold feeling of dread icing its way down Tom’s spine.

“I thought you’d forgiven me?”

“I never said that. I said that we needed to talk.”

“And I thought that you coming here…you _fucking_ me here meant that you forgave me!” As he said the words aloud, Tom realised how childish he sounded.

“Sex doesn’t equal forgiveness, Tom,” Emilia muttered, getting up to grab her panties from the floor.

“But,” Tom sat up, confused, “You said you loved me!” She turned and sat beside him with a sigh.

“I do love you,” She said, taking his hand, “I can’t just switch my feelings off. I’ve wanted to be with you like this for months. I mean, fuck, I’ve never _made love_ with someone before. All I’ve ever had were cheap fucks to keep my job.”

“I don’t understand…are we breaking up?” Tom’s voice was small, fragile as Emilia dropped her head, mildly exasperated.

“Sweetie, we broke up when you let some random girl give you a blowjob. Just because you _chose me_ over Ria doesn’t mean that you get me. I’m not a prize at a raffle, Tom!”

“But-”

“You need to show me that you’re serious. Having sex with me doesn’t prove that.” Emilia got back up and found the rest of her clothes, getting dressed.

“But how-”

“Figure it out.” Emilia said, pointedly before sliding her coat back on and abruptly leaving the room, slamming the door on her way out.

“FUCK!”


	23. Dior Poison

“Come on, it’s been two months!”

“You’re not seriously telling me that you haven’t gotten laid since we last fucked?”

“I haven’t!”

“I don’t believe you,” Bill laughed, throwing a chip at Alex, which he expertly caught in his mouth.

“Hey, I could say the same about you! From what I’ve heard, you’ve become quite the little slut.”

Tom rolled his eyes so hard that he gave himself a headache. Seeing Bill back with Alex Claster made his skin crawl. After songs like _Better_ and the entire Billy EP, it seemed incredibly hypocritical for Bill to be sitting in their Warsaw hotel room cuddled up with Alex on the sofa. Tom was just glad that there was a separate lounge area so he could relax on his bed and turn up the television to drown out their embarrassing sexual flirting.

It had been a week since he had had one of the best fucks of his life. Oddly enough, it had also turned into one of the worst nights of his life. Of course, he had been looking forward to making love to her but he had also been revelling in the anticipation of holding her in his arms all night, knowing that he had finally been able to satisfy her.

Tom knew that it had been rather egotistical of him to think that Emilia would just forgive him after he had admitted to her that not only had he nearly dumped her for his ex-wife but had actually cheated on her. He had just been so caught up in the relief and excitement of her coming to the Berlin show and coming to be with him afterwards that it hadn’t even crossed his mind that she might still be pissed off with him.

They hadn’t spoken since she walked out of his hotel room the previous Tuesday and hadn’t even sent each other any messages. Emilia had told Tom to _prove_ himself but he hadn’t a clue what that meant. He assumed that she wanted a big romantic gesture but he wasn’t that sort of guy. He wasn’t the type to litter a bedroom with rose petals with an ice bucket of Champagne and a bowl of strawberries…he left that cliché type of romance to Bill. Tom tended to let his love speak for itself. Instead of bringing home a bouquet of flowers, which he saw as meaningless, Tom preferred to give himself – his time and presence was surely more meaningful than a box of chocolates.

But then again…when had he ever really given Emilia his time?

He hadn’t.

“Alex!” Tom wrinkled his nose in disgust as he heard Bill giggling like a horny schoolgirl. He grabbed his laptop and got up, poking his head into the lounge area.

“I’m not going to be staying, I’m going to fly home tonight.” Tom muttered, earning himself a frown from Bill.

“You what?”

“I’m going to go to the airport now and go home,” Tom repeated, “I don’t want to stay,” He muttered, retreating into the bedroom to grab his suitcase. With his phone in hand, he started browsing available flights to Berlin when he got outside and flagged down a taxi.

He booked a flight on the short ride to the airport that was luckily leaving very soon.

Upon arriving back in Berlin, Tom got a taxi to his apartment block and didn’t even bother going into the building. Instead, he threw his suitcase into the back of his car and drove straight over to Emilia’s place, stopping at a small supermarket to pick up a few things. He parked and ran up the stairs, knocking on the door. When the door swung open, Tom had a sharp intake of breath as she stood before him, beautiful in a low-cut black jumpsuit, showing off the deep cleavage that he loved so much.

“Hi,” Emilia frowned, confused, as she saw Tom standing on her doorstep, “What are you doing here?” Swallowing hard, Tom held up a big bar of chocolate and a bottle of rose wine like an awkward teenager trying to impress a crush.

“For you.” He didn’t know what to say and was fully aware of how awkward he was. She raised an eyebrow, unconvinced.

“What?”

“I love you,” The words fell out of Tom’s mouth and he rolled his eyes at how juvenile he sounded.

“Tom, I don’t-”

“I want to hear about you,” He interrupted, “I want to know everything about you. How your day was, how your week was, what you love, what you hate. I want to know your favourite colour, your favourite song, your dress size, shoe size. Everything.” Tom almost tripped over his words as he rushed to get it all out. With her face unreadable, Emilia stepped aside to let him in.

They sat together in her living room on opposite ends of the sofa.

“You don’t even like chocolate. Or rose wine.” She said, sceptically.

“They’re for you, not me.”

“I told you that I was going on a diet.”

“But you don’t need to! I think-”

“That’s just it, Tom. It’s not about you and what you think of my body. It’s about what makes me happy.”

“But I thought you _were_ happy? You never mentioned anything about being unhappy.” Tom could only watch as Emilia sighed, shaking her head.

“We’ve only known each other for a few months. You think I’m gonna start moaning to you about how fat and ugly I am when you’re apparently – for some reason – attracted to me?”

A silence filled the air.

Tom was stunned.

“Fat and ugly?” He managed to choke out as she avoided his eye, “You can’t really think-”

“You’ve got to stop acting like you think I’m attractive.” Emilia bit out, distracting herself by picking up Alfie as he lay at her feet.

“I _do_ think you’re attractive!” Tom insisted, frustrated.

“Then how come you can’t get an erection when you’re with me?” Her words were like a punch in the stomach.

“You _know_ that I can’t-”

“Yeah,” Emilia snorted, the derision entirely plain, “I know what you _say_. And I was stupid enough to believe you.”

“Because it’s true!” Tom cried out and Emilia finally looked up and stared him dead in the eye.

“You didn’t have a problem getting an erection when some Romanian slut wanted to suck your dick, did you? Explain that.” Her sharp words made him hang his head in shame.

“I can’t tell you how much I hate myself for that,” Tom murmured, “It was just the adrenaline and the satisfaction of the show just had me relaxed…and, I don’t know, it just happened.”

“Oh well, that’s ok then. I mean, if it just _happened_ ,” Emilia scowled with an exaggerated roll of her eyes, shaking her head.

“You can’t tell me that you genuinely believe that I think you’re fat and ugly?” Tom’s heart dropped like a stone in his chest when she avoided his eye and shrugged, defiantly.

“Don’t you?” She asked, her voice cold and steely.

“What part of me bending you over and eating your pussy like my life fucking depends on it, tells you that I think you’re ugly?” Tom said, entirely exasperated but she didn’t reply and so Tom stood, defeated.

“I should go. You don’t want me here.” But she grabbed his arm and yanked him back down onto the sofa.

“I still love you. But I’m mad at you,” She said with a sigh, “I don’t want to waste energy being pissed off with you.”

“I-I’m trying.”

“I know,” She forced a small smile and picked up the chocolate, “You really want to know everything, huh?”

“Everything.”

Tom spent the next three hours curled up on Emilia’s sofa while she proceeded to take him entirely literally and tell him _everything_ that there was to know about her. He listened intently as she told him that her favourite meal was loaded nachos followed by blueberry pie with toffee ice cream because her mother would make it every Monday evening to give her something to look forward to after the first day of the week at school. She told him that she had always hated school because her weight meant that she was picked on, which led to her eating more and then getting bullied even more.

“I hated school too. I had long hair when I was like ten and Bill started experimenting with nail varnish so we got bullied awfully too.”

“At least you had someone,” Emilia pointed out, “I had _no one_. No friends, no one to partner up with in group projects, no one to invite to a slumber party…those things are big deals when you’re a ten-year-old girl.” Tom nodded, conceding. He _did_ always have Bill, even when he had no one else and the same was true today. He was lucky; it didn’t matter what happened, there was always someone who had his back.

Maybe it was perverse but Tom took some sort of satisfaction that, like him, she had also been an outsider in her youth. It was something that still to this day affected him. When he first met new people, he often appeared to be cold and uncaring; he would only ever let someone in if they proved themselves to be a genuine person first. Most of the people around him assumed that that was due to his celebrity status and that he was simply wary of people perhaps only wanting to know him for their own gain, but though that was the case, it tied back to his childhood. It was reassuring to hear that someone else – someone who he saw as so strong – also went through something similar; the role of the protector was very much embedded in Tom and he longed to keep her by him, safe and looked after.

As they spoke and Emilia told sweet and funny stories from her childhood, she started to warm to him. She edged closer to him until Tom plucked up the courage to reach over and take her hand in his, sighing a small sigh of relief when she didn’t pull away but instead allowed him to entwine their fingers together. He squeezed her hand as she carried on talking so intently and passionately about her parents, and particularly her mother.

“She was so elegant. We had hardly anything but she always made sure that we had food and she had her _Dior Poison_ perfume. Every time I go to a perfume store, I always get one of those little tester bottles of it.” She laughed, “It smells like her, you know? Like their bedroom every Saturday night when my dad would take her out for dinner. They had been together for like twenty years and still would always spend _hours_ getting ready and…yeah, that smell reminds me of back then.”

Hearing her talk about her parents, and her mother in particular, brought out a soft happiness in Emilia, though it was tinged with melancholy. As she spoke, Tom couldn’t help but think about his own parents. He was so close to his mother but he hadn’t spoken to his father in nearly six years. He and Bill had severed ties with Jorg in late 2011 after receiving a tip off that he was negotiating a deal with _Bild_ newspaper to release scores of unseen photos, both from their childhood and during their career; including pictures from Bill’s engagement party to his ex-partner when they were twenty. As well as the photographs, Jorg was offering the newspaper stories which would have exposed Bill’s sexuality, Bill’s diagnosis of chlamydia when he was nineteen and Bill’s eating disorder. It was like a knife to his stomach to know that their father was willing to destroy Bill in that way but it hurt even more when they learnt that he was only in line to get $10,000 for it.

So, Bill and Tom sent him a cheque for $11,000 and a non-disclosure agreement, as well as a letter telling him that he was not to contact either of them ever again, that he was cut out of their wills and that, essentially, he was dead to them.

Hearing Emilia speak of her parents made Tom regret that a little.

Emilia’s phone persistently vibrating on the coffee table interrupted their flowing conversation.

“It’s Sofie,” Emilia sighing upon checking it, “I should probably take this.”

“Yeah, yeah of course,” Tom watched as Emilia answered the phone, disappearing into the bedroom.

Sofie was really quite a force to be reckoned with. Remarkably headstrong and forthright, she knew exactly what she wanted and focused on how she was going to get it. Her intelligence combined with intimidation meant that she commanded respect and oozed authority.

Tom got all of that from just ten minutes in her presence.

“I wish you hadn’t met Sofie like you did,” Emilia said, breaking Tom’s train of thought as she came back in the room and sat down beside him, “She had it in her head that you had made me go to California. I thought I had convinced her that that wasn’t true but apparently not and she went to Hamburg to confront you and then when she heard that Ria was there…” Emilia trailed off with a sigh, “She’s very protective over me. I’m not sure why, if anything, it should be the other way around. Maybe she’s scared of losing me too, I don’t know.”

“Doesn’t bode too well that she fucking hates me, does it?” Tom forced a smirk, trying to lighten the mood just a little.

“She doesn’t _hate_ you…she just thinks that you’re a bit of a cock.”

“Oh, well that’s much better,” Tom muttered.

“She’s a lovely girl, really. Just overprotective and a bit clingy, that’s all. You don’t know how long it took me to persuade her to move down to Munich to go to university. I should have thought more about how it would affect her before I jetted off to California. I should have known that she wasn’t really ok with it.”

“I still want us to live together, you know. Ok, maybe California was a bad idea but you know, there’s really no reason for me to live in L.A. anymore.”

“I don’t think we should talk about that yet…I don’t want that sort of commitment with you just yet anymore.”

“But-”

“I don’t trust you, Tom. Not yet. But I do want to be with you. I want us to work.” Emilia reached over to take Tom’s hand, smiling softly as he cupped her cheek. Shifting, he leaned over to kiss her.

“I will win your trust back, I promise.”


	24. Gynaecomastia Surgery

Since Tom came back to Berlin following the European tour, before the Russian leg kicked off the next week, he had spent an awful lot of time worrying about the state of his relationship with Emilia. He was worried about winning back her trust and he worried if they could ever share the mutually respected intimacy that they had before. He couldn’t help but wonder if she could ever truly forgive him and if their relationship could possibly survive.

Nevertheless, he took some pleasure from the fact that she wasn’t at all shy about forcing his face between her thighs.

“Was that good?” He murmured, leaning up to kiss her softly.

“What part of me squirting all over your face left you doubting the answer to that?” Emilia giggled and Tom nipped at her bottom lip as he lay beside her.

“Have you processed everything yet?” She asked quietly after they lay in peaceful silence for just a moment. Tom sighed, shrugging his shoulders.

“Yeah, I guess so. I mean…there’s nothing I can do about it, is there? She had a miscarriage. That’s it.” Tom forcefully swallowed the lump in his throat, squeezing Emilia’s hand as she slipped it into his.

“Look…I don’t want to be that person but…” Emilia trailed off, as if she couldn’t bring herself to say what she was thinking. Tom frowned, confused as he turned to look over at her.

“But, what?” He prompted but she avoided looking over at him.

“Well, are you sure she actually _had_ a miscarriage?”

“ _What_?” Tom exclaimed, sitting up, looking at Emilia, bewildered as she sat up along with him.

“You didn’t see her for months, Tom. How do you know she really did have a miscarriage?”

“Because she said so!” Tom shook her head, “Who the fuck would lie about that?”

“This is a woman who didn’t tell you that she had lost _your_ baby. You don’t think that’s a bit weird? How do _you_ know that she was ever pregnant? Or, on the other hand, how do you know that she didn’t have the baby?”

Tom was stunned. He didn’t know what to say. He was just incredulous that Emilia could think that anyone could do such a thing. He _knew_ Ria, she wouldn’t do such a cruel thing. She wouldn’t lie about a miscarriage. And she certainly wouldn’t have his baby without telling him.

Dazed and with shaky legs, Tom got up and wandered to the front of the room, grabbing the door handle before stopping for a moment.

“You think I’d marry someone who was that sick?” Tom didn’t wait for her response as he slammed the door shut. He trudged into the living room, flopping down onto the sofa and petting Alfie as he jumped into his lap. Pulling his tin out of his pocket, he lit up a pre-rolled joint and sank into the sofa. They didn’t have any Viagra so Tom was both sexually frustrated and pissed off by Emilia’s notion that Ria’s story had been a lie.

As Tom took a long, satisfying drag of his joint, he struggled to comprehend the doubt that Emilia had planted in his head. Disbelieving Ria’s words hadn’t even registered in his mind as a remote possibility. After searching for an explanation for so long, he needed to believe what she said for his own piece of mind and, ultimately, so that he could finally have closure on that part of his life.

“Are you ok?” Tom’s train of thought was interrupted by Emilia coming out of her bedroom and into the kitchen that was attached to the lounge area. She grabbed a packet of chocolate chip cookies from the cupboard and sat beside Tom on the sofa.

“She wasn’t lying. She wouldn’t do that,” Tom muttered, grabbing a cookie that Emilia offered him. He didn’t usually like chocolate but smoking grass made him seriously not care.

“Tom,” She reached over to take his hand, “A year ago, you didn’t think that she would walk out on you. There must be a way that you can find out for sure that what she’s saying is true?”

He knew that there were ways that he could verify Ria’s story. When one has money, like Tom certainly did, one tended to acquire certain privileges and contacts that made life easier and, sometimes, a little more paranoid. Which was why he tended to stay away from such methods.

“If she _was_ pregnant and _didn’t_ miscarry, why wouldn’t she tell me? By not telling me, she has to not only raise the kid by herself but she also doesn’t get my money. So, what does she gain? _Plus_ , she wanted me back! If we had gotten back together, I’d have noticed that she had a kid hanging around! I’m not that slow, you know.”

“I know you’re not slow,” Emilia muttered, taking the joint out of his hand and taking a drag for herself, “Maybe that was a little extreme but…” She trailed off with a sigh, “I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe that she had a miscarriage. If I were you, I’d want proof. I just don’t see how you can trust her word.”

Tom sighed in contemplation as Emilia curled up beside him and he put an arm around her shoulders. It had been six weeks or so since he had seen Ria and until this last half an hour, he hadn’t even contemplated that she might have been lying. He had been so happy that he had some kind of explanation that he hadn’t even thought to question it.

“I mean, wasn’t she on your health insurance in America?”

“Yeah, why?”

“And you paid for that, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I don’t know how it works, but wouldn’t you have been sent a bill for something like that?”

“I…I have no idea.” Tom said with a frown. He really didn’t have a clue.

“I’m sure you could easily-”

“Can we not talk about it anymore?” He interrupted her, “This is all I want right now,” He murmured, kissing the top of her head affectionately, “I’m so sorry that I jeopardised this,” He dropped his voice to a whisper as they lay together peacefully on the sofa, “I love you.”

“I love you too and I just want what’s best for you.”

“I know,” Tom whispered, kissing her cheek as he held her.

“So, will you just do me one little favour?”

“ _Yes_ , ok, if you insist, I will absolutely fuck your brains out.” Tom smirked as Emilia laughed.

“ _No_ , I didn’t mean that you horny fucker. I was going to say, will you just phone your healthcare provider and…I dunno, ask them what you were billed for in the last year.”

“Seriously?” Tom sighed with an irritated roll of his eyes, “The only one here who has these doubts is you so-”

“Come _on_ , you know I’m right! Look, if you’re right, then you’re right and you know that she was telling the truth and no harm done. But if you’re wrong then…well fuck, you have a right to know!”

Sensing that Emilia wasn’t going to drop the issue, Tom gritted his teeth and grabbed his phone, getting up. He felt entirely as though he was wasting his time but, nevertheless, he looked up the number for his health insurance company in California and called them. It wasn’t long before a receptionist answered his call and he lodged a request for his billing record for the entire year of 2016 which would cover when Ria had her miscarriage.

When he hung up the phone, he went straight to the fridge and grabbed a beer.

“You want one?”

“No, but can you pass me that left-over pizza?” Tom did as she asked and slumped down next to her on the sofa.

“You know I’m right,” Emilia grinned after eating a slice of cold pizza in slightly awkward silence.

“No, I don’t.” Tom muttered.

“Yes, you do,” Emilia smirked, passing him a slice, “You just won’t admit it.” Tom picked at the pizza slice, absent mindedly.

“It’s not just that. It’s Bill. He’s fucking stressing me out.”

“Why?”

“He’s back together with Alex,” Tom blurted out.

“Alex? That American guy that he wrote all your music about?”

“The very same,” He snorted, “It’s ridiculous. He was in Warsaw and everything. Little cunt.”

“Maybe he’s changed,” Emilia shrugged, hopefully, “You never know.”

“Little pricks like him don’t change, believe me. Bill has given him so many chances over the years but it’s always the same. It’s just hard to say much because he is never as happy as when he’s with Alex.”

Bill was a different person when Alex was around. He had a certain spunk that seemed to vanish when Alex did his disappearing act. He woke up in the good mood and was an absolute pleasure to be around; he would buy everyone dinner and order bottle after bottle of Champagne. He didn’t do drugs and went out partying because he wanted to, not because he felt like he had to.

That was why, while Tom rejoiced every time Alex broke Bill’s heart and left, it was bittersweet because the truth was that Bill was lost without him. He didn’t know what to do without him and Tom could only watch as he saw his brother bring man after man home night after night. It seemed to be the only thing to take his mind off his broken heart and make him feel worthy.

Emilia turned on the television just as a film was starting. They lit up another joint and smoked quietly, peacefully together for a while. Tom held her close as they lay together, a hand lazily squeezing her breast as the tips of his fingers of the other absent mindedly drew patterns on her stomach.

“So, you really don’t want me to go on a diet?”

“Hey, it’s nothing to do with me.”

“What, don’t you care?”

“Not really. It’s not my body.”

Tom wasn’t entirely sure what he’d done to earn the impromptu blow job later that evening but _damn_ , it felt good.

Having been up quite early that morning, Emilia went to bed and fell pretty much straight to sleep before ten. And despite being exhausted, Tom still couldn’t sleep so he went to bed with Emilia but sat up in bed, smoking a joint and scrolling aimlessly through his phone.

He hadn’t spoken to Bill since he left Warsaw a few days earlier and he was starting to become rather disconcerted that he found it easier and easier to leave contacting his brother for days on end as time went on. But Tom just couldn’t bare hearing Bill trying to convince him – and himself, for that matter – that Alex was a changed man, that he could really see a future now and Alex was so romantic and sweet…

It was the same speech every time and Tom simply didn’t want to hear it again. It was boring. It was old. It didn’t mean anything anymore. Their songs weren’t just words, they were truth. Bill really was better off alone than being with Alex but there was something about him that Bill just couldn’t resist. Bill seemed to believe that they were soulmates, that they were destined to be together.

Tom knew that that wasn’t the case. Tom knew that Bill needed so much more than what Alex could ever give him. Bill didn’t need that crazy, manic, obsessive kind of love. He didn’t need someone who threw spontaneous Champagne parties on his credit card or someone who liked him to snort coke off his cock. Bill needed someone who was _there_. He needed a guarantee that they would be there waiting for him when he got home in the evening. He needed someone who was just fucking faithful and stuck around.

That was not Alex ‘flight risk’ Claster.

Bill often mistook this distance for Tom not caring but that wasn’t the case. It hurt to see his brother being built up when he knew that he was going to fall at any moment.

“Tom?” He turned at the sound of Emilia’s voice, thick was sleep. She rolled onto her side, moving into him, a hand on his bare stomach.

“Sorry,” Tom muttered, turning to put his joint into the ashtray on the bedside table before settling back down in bed, stroking her hair affectionately, “Did I wake you?”

“Have you just been lying awake for the last few hours smoking pot?”

“Hey, it’s not even midnight yet.”

“We’ve been up since four in the morning!”

“I can’t sleep.” He smiled appreciatively as Emilia leaned up to kiss his cheek.

“I’m sure Bill is fine. I know this Alex guy is a cunt but it’s not like he’s in danger or anything, is it? He needs to come to the conclusion that Alex is a dick by himself and you’re not helping him one little bit by staying awake all night getting stoned.”

“But I-”

“You’re not his keeper. He’s a grown man and can make his own decisions, even if they are fucking stupid ones. I get it, I worry about Sofie _every time_ she gets a new boyfriend but you can’t voice the thoughts in your head because you’ll just drive a wedge between the two of you.” Tom sighed as she spoke, playing with her hair as her head lay on his chest.

“I know you’re right. I know but I can’t-” In the peaceful, quiet atmosphere, they both jumped when Tom’s phone started vibrating violently on the bedside table, “Sorry.”

When Tom rolled over to retrieve his phone, he frowned at the unknown number that flashed up on his screen. But it was an American number and he was expecting a call from his healthcare provider so he wasted no time in answering the call.

“Hello?”

_“Hello, am I speaking to a Mr Kaulitz?”_

“Yes, speaking.”

_“Mr Kaulitz, I am calling from Cigna Health Insurance regarding your enquiry on services provided on your plan from 1 st January 2016 to 31st December 2016.”_

“Yes, thank you, I’ve been expecting the call. Do you have the information I asked for?”

_“Yes, I have the list of services on my screen now. According to our records, we have bills for two general medical check-ups for a Tom Kaulitz and two of the same for a Ria Sommerfeld-Kaulitz. There are two dental appointments for a Tom Kaulitz and two of the same for a Ria Sommerfeld-Kaulitz. There is a non-essential surgical procedure for a Ria Sommerfeld-Kaulitz and two OB-GYN appointments for a Ria Sommerfeld-Kaulitz. That…appears to be everything. Was there anything else I could help you with?”_

Tom held his phone limply in his hand.

 _“Mr Kaulitz?”_ Her voice snapped him out of his racing mind.

“Oh, sorry, sorry. Did you…did you say there was a non-essential surgical procedure?”

_“Yes, Sir.”_

“Uh…what is that? Is that plastic surgery?”

_“Yes, Sir. Such wording usually indicates plastic surgery.”_

“And the OB-GYN appointments? Were they just routine appointments?”

_“Are you Ria Sommerfeld-Kaulitz’s husband?”_

“Yes.”

_“I can’t say for definite but only two in twelve months would indicate routine appointments, yes.”_

“What are the dates for the plastic surgery and the OB-GYN appointments?”

_“Let me just pull that up…ah, yes, the OB-GYN appointments were the 2 nd February and 15th August and the surgical procedure took place on the 8th May.”_

Tom’s heart sank.

“8th May?”

_“Yes, Sir.”_

“Could you tell me what the procedure was?”

_“Yes, Sir, let me just pull that up here. Ah, here we-oh. That’s strange.”_

“What? What is it?”

_“That can’t be correct…”_

“What is it?”

_“Well, this isn’t a procedure that a female would go through. There must be a mistake.”_

“What do you mean?”

_“The record says that the procedure was for gynaecomastia surgery…which is surgery to reduce the fat tissue in strictly the male chest.”_

Tom didn’t even bother to say goodbye to the receptionist as he weakly pulled the phone away from his ear and hung up. He was completely slack jawed and it wasn’t the joint that had his head swimming.

“Tom?”

“She was never pregnant.”

“What?”

“And she was having an affair.”


	25. Sweet Breakfast Carbs

Being careful not to wake her, Tom gently pulled back the sheets as Emilia slept peacefully. Tom was a very visual person and while he would never object to seeing her lying naked beside him, there wasn’t anything better than when she wore beautiful lingerie. It was as if she was teasing him, showing off enough of her soft, creamy skin to titillate him but not enough to satisfy his curious, wandering eye. She was wearing a black, sheer baby doll with red satin trailing over that impressive cleavage that Tom could never get over. She was everything that Tom had never been attracted to before but now he found it impossible to believe that he could ever want to sleep beside a bag of bones with an artificially inflated chest.

A few hours earlier, after a long rant, Emilia had finally coaxed Tom back into bed and, though he had had a stressful night sleep, he was surprised that he had slept at all. Which was a miracle considering the mess that his head was in. As soon as the sun began to rise, that was it, Tom was wide awake and there was no way he would be drifting back to sleep. So, he slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Emilia and he took a seat at the small table in the kitchen where he began picking at a croissant. His head was cloudy and his eyes were aching from lack of sleep but though he couldn’t think straight, he did know that he was very, very confused.

He didn’t understand so many things. He thought the whole Ria episode was over, that it was done. He thought he finally had an answer and it was all good. But it wasn’t. She hadn’t had a miscarriage and the date when she supposedly did – when he was in Europe promoting Bill’s EP – some guy was having a chest reduction surgery in _her_ name. Which meant that they had committed fraud on his health insurance.

Was that why she left? Did the man who had the surgery force her to defraud their insurance company and then did she get worried that Tom would find out and divorce her so she decided to get in there and leave him first?

And who was the guy? Did Tom know him? He racked his brains trying to think if he knew of any of their friends who was in hospital that previous May but he was drawing a blank. He wasn’t the type of person who was heavily involved in his friends’ lives so he wouldn’t have a clue if someone had spent a few days in hospital recovering from plastic surgery.

But just because she and some guy had fraudulently used his health insurance plan, did that necessarily mean that she was having an affair with him? There hadn’t been any problems in their marriage that Tom had noticed – they went on regular dates, had a very healthy sex life, and shared everything. Or did they share everything? Tom had thought so at the time, but maybe they hadn’t.

Tom questioned why he was still analysing the entire situation as if he knew Ria. If the past year had taught him anything, it was that he didn’t know her. He didn’t know her at all and even though he no longer had any desire to have her back in his life and could quite honestly say that he no longer had any love in his heart for her, it was still a coldly sobering feeling to know that he hadn’t known his own wife.

“Hey, G. You wanna get breakfast?”

_“Breakfast?”_

“Yeah.”

_“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat breakfast in the morning before.”_

“Hey, you want a free breakfast or not?”

_“Sure, sure. You wanna go to that pancake place near the airport?”_

Tom sent Emilia a message telling her where he’d gone and hurried out of her apartment, jogging down the stairs to his car.

“Hey.” By the time Georg got to the restaurant, ordered, and sat down opposite him, Tom was already shoving waffles topped with banana, caramel, and whipped cream into his face. He had an Oreo milkshake and a pile of butter pancakes in front of him to get through too. It turned out that being stressed, anxious and exhausted made Tom ravenous.

“How are you?”

“Exhausted. Meg is barely four months pregnant and insists that the baby is pressing on his bladder so she’s up to the bathroom every two minutes. Like, the kid must only be the size of an egg, right? I don’t know but I think the eight litres of orange juice she’s been drinking every day is the cause of the constant peeing and the severe heartburn but whenever I try to tell her, she tells me I’m a semi-fertile devil and-”

“G. Shut up.”

“Sorry. How’s Em?”

“Beautiful,” Tom smirked, “Nah, she’s good. She’s enjoying not working, but she’s bored. I need to talk to Bill at some point, he seemed pretty interested in doing a fashion line with her but it would be great if they could get together and start discussing some stuff.”

“You think they’d work well together?” Georg asked, dubiously, “You know what Bill is like when he works with people if they have a different vision.” He made a good point. Bill was easy to work with when everyone around him shared or approved of his ideas but when others disagreed with him, it was a nightmare. Bill was incredibly uncompromising and stubborn. Tom wasn’t convinced that he wanted to expose Emilia to his twin’s ridiculous behaviour.

“I don’t know. Maybe he will be more willing to listen to someone who has dealt with the customers first hand in retail, you know? Someone who knows what the public wants.”

“Is that wishful thinking?”

“Yeah,” Tom laughed, “maybe it is.” They paused for a moment as Tom finished off his waffles and he sat back with a sigh, “I’m sorry. I keep acting like I’m the only one with problems. How’s the baby?” Georg smiled softly.

“Very healthy and…don’t tell Gus because I haven’t told him yet but we’re having a boy.”

“Damn. Congratulations, G!” Tom beamed, heartened as he saw Georg completely unable to hide the proud, excited grin on his lips.

“Don’t tell Meg but I was so hoping for a boy. I mean, I’d have been happy with a girl too, of course but…every man wants to teach their son to play football, right?”

“Do they? I guess I better have a daughter then.” Tom chuckled. Everyone knew that he had never taken the absolute slightest interest in anything sporty or athletic. He only went to the gym because he loved the results more than he hated being there. Georg peered at him, curiously.

“I’ve never heard you speak of having kids before.”

“I was joking.” Tom said with an eyebrow raised while Georg nodded, unconvinced.

“I’ve never heard of you speak about having kids even as a joke, before.”

“So?”

“Would you have kids with Em?” Georg asked but was quickly rebuffed with a stunned laugh.

“Are you kidding? We’ve only been together for a few months!”

“And? It’s not like you guys have been concerned with taking things slow.” Georg pointed out while Tom reluctantly conceded with a shrug.

“I dunno. She would be a great mother, for sure. I just don’t know if I want kids…it’s not something I’ve ever thought about.” It really wasn’t. He and Ria had, of course, talked about it briefly but it was always something that was too far off in the future to talk about. Even with Ria’s miscarriage story, Tom still hadn’t actually thought about the question of having a child.

“You’d be a better father than you think. I mean, if things had turned out differently with Ria, you’d have a kid right now and you’d be a good father.” Tom couldn’t help but snort as Georg spoke, “What?”

“Well, that’s where my current problem comes from.”

“I thought everything had been sorted out now?” Georg asked and the two of them paused for a moment as a waitress set a plate of pancakes on the table.

“ _You_ got pancakes?”

“ _Protein_ pancakes.”

“Ah, of course,” Tom smirked as he watched Georg join him in shovelling food into his face.

“So,” Georg paused with a mouthful of food, “What’s your new problem?”

“Turns out that she wasn’t ever pregnant and defrauded my insurance company to get some guy a chest reduction.” Tom had said the words so many times in his head that they didn’t even have any impact or hold any significance anymore. He only realised its enormity when he saw the stunned, slack jawed look on Georg’s face.

“You what?”

“I don’t know who the guy is-”

“No, wait. She _wasn’t_ pregnant?” Georg asked, confused.

“Nope.”

“But…Ria told Meg-”

“Ria lied.”

“ _Fuck._ And you don’t know who the guy is?”

“I haven’t a clue. But she definitely wasn’t pregnant and definitely didn’t have a miscarriage either.”

“Wait, how do you know that?”

“Em didn’t believe Ria’s story so I called the insurance company to get her off my back. Turns out that she was right. She didn’t have a miscarriage. But, on the day she said that she did have a miscarriage, some guy had plastic surgery on my health insurance, under her name.” Tom shook his head, helplessly frustrated as he turned to his milkshake, frowning as the large gulp he took gave him brain freeze.

“Fuck. So, I’m guessing that you’re thinking that she was having an affair with whoever had that chest surgery?”

“Pretty much,” he nodded, “I dunno. I’m trying to work out if I even give a fuck anymore. Like, fine, I’ll pay for this fucking surgery, whatever. I just want a divorce now. I want her gone.”

“But aren’t you curious as to who it was?” Georg frowned, “I mean, what if it’s someone you know? What if it’s a friend?” Tom snorted.

“Those dickheads in America aren’t my _friends_ , I’m well aware of that. They’re just people to go partying with and they think that we don’t know that they’re just using us to try and get their faces in the press. Well. I know that. I’m not convinced that Bill does, though,” Tom muttered while Georg finished off his pancakes, signalling to the waitress that he wanted another plate.

“Speaking of Bill, I hear Alex is back.” Georg asked curiously. No one liked Alex and if there was one person who hated him as much as Tom, it was Georg.

“Yep,” Tom sighed, “more’s the pity.”

“I honestly thought that…you know, what with the EP and the album that he’d finally accepted that that cunt is no good.”

“Yeah,” Tom scoffed, “You’d have thought, right? I’ve lost count how many people he’s fucked behind Bill’s back. But, hey, it’s his funeral.”

“You don’t sound that concerned,” Georg commented, confused.

“I’m just bored of it, G. Really, really bored. Every few months it’s ‘Oh Alex really isn’t that bad’ or ‘He’s sorted himself out this time’ or ‘Why can’t you accept that he’s my soulmate?’ It’s such bullshit and if Alex cheating over and over again and stealing his credit cards won’t make him see that he is _not_ his soulmate, what chance have I got?” Tom rolled his eyes, exasperated as he started on his own plate of pancakes. Georg nodded sympathetically.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. He’s gotta come to the realisation on his own.”

“Yeah, well, I’m bored of waiting. I’ve had enough of him, G, seriously. I’ve been sick of his shit for months but I’ve put up with it because I thought I could trust him,” Tom’s derision flavoured his laugh, “I was fucking wrong about that, wasn’t I?”

“I guess he thought he was doing the right thing,” Georg tried to reason, “I thought you’d forgiven him for that, anyway?”

“I tolerated him for the sake of the tour. He’s a totally different person to me now,” Tom shook his head as he played with the straw in his milkshake, “My twin would never have kept something like that from me. I _know_ it didn’t turn out to be true but that’s not the point, is it? He thought it was true and it was _huge_. I can’t forgive him for that. Not yet.” Georg nodded, sympathetically yet a little awkwardly.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when I found out. It’s just that-”

“No,” Tom held up his hand to silence him, “I get it. Meg asked you not to and…” Tom shrugged, “I get it. I’m not mad at you. Really.” Georg nodded, relieved but remained at least somewhat unconvinced.

“I get why you’re pissed off with him, I do but he didn’t keep it from you out of malice. He wasn’t trying to hurt you.” Georg said softly as he picked at the last of his pancakes.

“It doesn’t matter. He should have told me, end of discussion. He saw how crazy I’ve been since Ria left me. He had no right not to tell me. If it wasn’t for Emilia, I don’t know what I would have done. She took the edge off. She lifted the cloud. I feel _alive_ now. All I want to do is get my divorce granted and move on. I want to take Em on holiday and get away from all this shit. Away from Bill, Ria, Alex, the band, the tour…everything. I just want to finally be with Em without all this shit hanging over my head.”

“Wait, are you going to-” Georg was interrupted by his phone ringing, “Sorry, it’s Meg.”

Tom didn’t listen as Georg spoke to his partner and ordered a strawberry sundae while he played on his phone.

“You mind if me and Meg come to Em’s place later? She wants to talk to you.”

“She does?” Tom raised an eyebrow, “Why?” But Georg just shrugged.

“I don’t know, she didn’t say. She just asked if you would be cool if we came over this evening with a couple of pizzas and some drinks.”

“Oh. Well…sure, I guess.”

It wasn’t long before Tom and Georg had well and truly stuffed themselves full of sweet breakfast carbs and had parted ways until later that day. When Tom arrived back at Emilia’s apartment and let himself in, he froze as he heard a familiar voice emanating from the kitchen area.

With his teeth gritted and the knot tightening in his stomach, Tom went into the kitchen to find Emilia sitting at the small table with Sofie.

“Hey girls.” Tom plastered a casual smile on his face as he leaned against the kitchen counter. Emilia looked up at him, anxiety on her face while Sofie looked up with a tense, closed smile.

That was when Tom noticed the Louis Vuitton suitcases.


	26. Nothing More Than An Animal

Tom glared over at Sofie as he sipped at his beer. She was chatting happily – almost sickeningly animatedly – with Bill and Alex as Emilia talked to Georg and Meg. Tom, meanwhile, was sitting on the small wall with a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other, glaring at Sofie. Ever since she had confronted him in Hamburg a little over six weeks earlier, he had seen her as the only negative in being in a relationship with Emilia. That she was in Munich was a comfort. But, despite Emilia believing that her little sister had been doing well in university, it turned out that she had dropped out six months earlier and now had run out of money.

Emilia was furious, of course but had agreed to leave the conversation until the next day. Georg had suggested that instead of a quiet night in, they would all go out to a local bar. Of course, much to Tom’s chagrin, Emilia had invited Sofie to come along with them. Thankfully, the interfering cow had had the good sense not to try and rile him up and had placed her attention solely with Bill and Alex.

When Georg got up with Meg to take her to the bathroom, Tom beckoned Emilia over to him. She flashed a bashful smile and stood up, giving him a small kiss as he gripped her hips gently.

“I’m going to kill her tomorrow,” Emilia smirked, “But she won’t ruin our night, I promise.”

“I’ll be gone for two weeks…will you miss me?”

“I’ll be crying every day.” Emilia laughed, smoothing down Tom’s flyaway baby hairs in his hair. Tom gently pulled her closer and lowered his voice.

“Listen, have you done coke before?” He murmured, only just loud enough to be heard over the music and loud voices. She looked at him quizzically with a frown and shook her head.

“No, never.”

“You wanna try?” Tom’s voice was gruff, excited but unsteady, unsure of her reaction, which was completely unreadable.

“I don’t…I don’t know.”

“I mean, you don’t have to,” He shrugged, looking down, “But…I’m going to be doing a few lines tonight at home.”

“But you haven’t done it since I’ve been with you?”

“Yeah, I know, I haven’t for a few months. But I…I don’t know, I just want to.”

“But why?”

“The euphoria,” Tom breathed, tucking a loose hair behind Emilia’s ear, taking the opportunity to run the back of his hand over her cheek, intimate as if they were alone, “is unlike anything else. It’s _incredible._ ”

Their close public display of affection attracted a few smirks from Bill and Alex and if there was one thing Tom couldn’t stand, it was Alex flashing him a derisory grin. So, he took Emilia’s hand and went back inside the bar, where Meg and Georg were being served.

“Sorry, I just _cannot stand_ that prick. I mean, if he’s not looking in my direction, I can tolerate him but when he starts…y’know, _looking_ , then I want to-”

“Hey, you two.” Meg interrupted them both with a warm smile and a hand on her small, round bump as she handed a bottle of beer to Tom and a glass of wine to Emilia.

“Oh, thanks,” Tom said, sceptically. Since when did Meg buy him a drink?

“Um, could I speak to you, Tom?” Meg asked and Tom shrugged, kissing Emilia on the cheek as she headed back outside with Georg. Tom watched as Meg sat down with a sigh and took a sip from her glass of orange juice before looking up at Tom with an eyebrow raised, “Well, sit down.” Remembering himself, Tom sat opposite her.

“So, what’s all this about? You invited us out for drinks and now you’re buying me a drink? I thought you were President of the ‘I Hate Tom’ club.” Tom was expecting a scathing remark in response or at least an eyeroll. Instead, Meg avoided his eye and looked down with a small sigh.

“When Ria left you, she came to me.”

“She did?” Tom frowned. He didn’t know that. Meg nodded, still avoiding his eye.

“Yeah. She told me that she had a miscarriage caused by stress from,” she paused with another sigh, “finding out that you had an affair. Georg was back in Germany at the same so I took her in. She begged me not to tell G, so I didn’t. I _believed_ that she was fragile and needed my help. I _fucking hated you_ because, as far as I could see, _you_ caused her heartbreak and – more importantly to me – _you_ caused her miscarriage. Recently…well, I’ve learnt that I was lied to.”

“No, wait,” Tom frowned, shaking his head, “I’m confused. I only told Georg what I found out this morning when we went for breakfast and you called him then, asking to see me this evening, presumably for this conversation we’re having, so he couldn’t have told you that I know she didn’t have a miscarriage. So how do _you_ know that?”

“Well, I assume the same way you did,” Meg said with an eyebrow raised, as if it should have been entirely obvious, “From the guy she had an affair with.” Tom could feel his entire body tense.

“No. That’s not how I found out.” Meg’s eyes widened as Tom corrected her.

“Oh. Fuck. I’m sorry. _Shit_ , I’m so sorry,” She groaned, running a hand through her hair, frustrated with herself.

“Who, Meg? Who is he?” Tom prompted, his leg shaking impatiently under the table. He watched her as she looked over to the beer garden with a deep sigh.

“Alex.”

Tom couldn’t really remember getting back to his apartment. He had intended to go back to Emilia’s apartment to spend their last night together before he went to Russia. But with his mind fogged over, his heart hammering and his entire body shaking, he gave the taxi driver his own address as he worked on automatic. This nauseating, dizzying feeling was becoming all too familiar to Tom. It had become a hugely inconvenient part of life.

He struggled on shaky legs into the elevator up to his apartment where he crashed his way into the bathroom, yanking down his jeans as he sat on the toilet bending down to hold his head in his hands. His legs were shaking uncontrollably by this point and he could actually feel the colour draining from his face.

Tom somehow mustered a little energy and leaned over to grab the wastepaper basked and quickly made himself sick into it.

“Fuck.” He groaned as he leaned back, finally feeling his body start to calm down.

“Tom?” In amongst the fuzz of his mind, his eyes snapped open as he heard the unmistakable sound of his voice.

“Bathroom!” He grimaced as he found the energy to call out. The door pushed open and Emilia gasped as she saw Tom lolling on the toilet, panting and damp with sweat.

“Jesus.” She went over to him and stroked his hair, smoothing it back from his face.

“I’m fine,” He muttered, hauling himself up and yanking his jeans back up. Emilia took his hand and guided him out to the living area, sitting him down on the sofa.

“You had another panic attack,” She said pointedly as Tom breathed heavily, still trying to regain his composure.

“I’m fine,” He murmured, fluttering his eyes open, squeezing Emilia’s hand affectionately, “You’re always here when I need you, aren’t you?”

“Meg told me you’d gone home so I followed. She wouldn’t tell me what happened, she just said that she told you something that she shouldn’t have.” Emilia said softly, stroking the top of his head reassuringly. Tom nodded, grimacing as he remembered their sickening conversation.

“Yeah.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“No. I just want…” Tom trailed off as he dug into his jacket pocket and threw a small plastic baggie of white powder onto the coffee table in front of them. There was a short pause.

“Is that…?”

“Yes.” Tom scratched the back of his neck, awkwardly as he looked down, “You don’t have to stay, I’ll call you a taxi if you don’t want to watch-”

“I want to do it with you.” Emilia interrupted, squeezing his hand. He turned his head slowly to look over at her.

“Really?” He raised an eyebrow, surprised.

“Yeah,” She bit her lip, nervously excited, “Take me there.” Tom swallowed hard and nodded.

“You’ll be fine. I’ll look after you,” Tom turned towards Emilia for just a moment, kissing her softly, “Trust me?” She nodded as Tom cut two lines with his credit card on an old CD case.

“Of course,” Emilia murmured.

“Ok, babe,” Tom stroked her hair affectionately, “It’ll burn your nose just a bit but don’t worry, that’ll pass. Then, give it a few minutes and you’ll feel incredible but the back of your throat will burn. But we’ll keep doing lines, every hour or so and it’ll feel better and better. It’ll be ok, I’ll be right there with you.” Tom rolled up a twenty euro note and handed it to Emilia, who was biting her bottom lip nervously, “Here, you go first. Just do it like they do in the movies.”

“Really? Just snort it?”

“Yes,” Tom chuckled, “Are you ok?” Emilia nodded and clumsily snorted one of the lines that Tom had cut. He couldn’t help but grin as she started coughing and spluttering.

“Holy fuck, ugh,” Emilia grimaced, grabbing a bottle of water and drinking it hastily while Tom leaned down and snorted a line for himself. Having done coke many times before, its effect was a little more immediate and it wasn’t long before he was pulling Emilia onto his lap, groping her ass as he kissed her hard.

“Did I mention that it makes me really, _really_ fucking horny?”

“My throat is just… _ugh_. Feels like I snorted fucking chlorine or some shit.”

“It’ll get better, I swear. You’ll be snorting it off my cock before long.” Tom grinned as he smacked her ass, kissing her deeply.

“We shouldn’t have bothered with Viagra, huh?” Emilia smirked as she grinded down on Tom’s thick erection, making him hiss.

“Ah, well, there’s nothing like fucking while on coke and I didn’t want to set the bar so high,” Tom groaned as she grinded, gripping her hips to get as much friction as possible, “Feel good?” She didn’t reply. Instead, she frantically unzipped Tom’s jeans and he dropped his head back with a long groan as she took his thick erection into her hands.

“Fuck. _Tom_!” He looked up at the sound of her gasp and immediately saw why. Already, his cock was pulsing, throbbing hard and ready. It must have been a solid inch and a half bigger than usual, “Talk about a raging erection, huh.” She grinned, licking her lips as she fisted him hard while Tom flipped up her skirt and yanked her panties aside.

“That’s _it_.” He smacked her ass as she sank her pussy down on him until her deliciously round ass was sat on his thighs. As she leaned down for a frantic kiss, he yanked up her low-cut crop top, immediately taking a tight nipple between his lips, “I will never get used to these, I swear.” His eyes rolled back as Emilia’s euphoria apparently started to kick in and she started moving her hips, grinding down hard on him, her moans alone making his cock throb almost painfully inside her.

“Fuck, that’s so good,” Emilia gasped and while she would usually take it slow at first, establish a rhythm and build it up, that definitely wasn’t the case now. Grabbing the sofa cushions, Tom cried out as she started riding him hard, her ass smacking loudly against his thighs as she took every inch with every thrust. He leaned back, grabbing her round ass as he started furiously thrusting up inside her, fucking her hard as he ignored his profuse sweating.

It was incredible. He truly did feel euphoric. Ever since he first tried it when he was nineteen, Tom truly believed that there was nothing better than fucking while on coke. But, as a regular user, the euphoria was quickly running out so he smacked her ass and growled in her ear.

“Suck my cock.”

Normally, he would have expected a smirk and a quick rebuttal but she climbed off, got down on his knees and started dutifully sucking his cock. There was no care and attention or sensuality like usual but, instead, it was a wet, sloppy, frantic blowjob. And that suited Tom just fine.

He grabbed his bag of coke and, reluctantly, he coaxed Emilia up into an equally sloppy kiss.

“Lie back on the table.” He muttered and she pushed their phones and his wallet carelessly onto the floor, lying back on the coffee table as he asked.

“Are you…oh fuck, you are.”

“Yes, I am.” Tom grinned as he poured just a little of the white powder on her chest, just above her heaving breasts and quickly leaned down to snort it up, “ _Fuck_ , that’s _it_.” He kissed her hard but only briefly before he stood, spread her legs wide and – almost literally – dived right in. he dug his fingers into her thick thighs as he slid three fingers inside her and licked her clit feverishly. He could have sworn that he could feel it throbbing on his tongue.

Of course, it wasn’t long before Tom leaned back over Emilia and thrust himself back inside her, crying out at the sensation. The increased sensitivity was almost too much. He knew he wasn’t going to last long but he didn’t care.

Emilia’s desperate moans and the cocaine kicking it so deliciously made it entirely impossible to think straight. All he could do with any certainty was pound her harder than he ever did before. He was operating on his pure natural instincts. Like he wasn’t human. Nothing more than an animal.

Tom grabbed Emilia’s thighs and yanked her legs firmly around his waist as he let out a guttural growl and came hard inside of her.

“Oh God…Tom…you’re gonna make me a fucking coke head…” Emilia gasped with a giggle and he leaned down to kiss her.

It was only when Tom pulled out and looked down at her that he realised that they hadn’t used a condom.


	27. Crazy For Cock

“Shouldn’t we do something? Isn’t there a pill you can take?”

“Yeah, I’ll get it tomorrow.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to get it now?”

“Sure, but it’s half past one in the morning…are you ok?” Emilia asked while Tom gripped the steering wheel hard.

“I just…I mean, what if… _fuck_ , why did I do that?”

“Jesus Christ, Tom! Chill out, it’ll be fine.”

“How are _you_ so calm?” Tom frowned, stealing a glance over at her as he drove down the highway. But she just shrugged.

“It’s something I can’t control. I’ll get the morning after pill tomorrow morning. Stop stressing, please. You have enough to worry about.”

She was talking about the tour, of course but all Tom could think about was Alex.

Driving across the city to Emilia’s apartment while still kinda high on cocaine probably wasn’t Tom’s best idea but he knew that he simply couldn’t be there when Bill arrived back with Alex in toe. He hadn’t had time to process everything that had happened that evening. With what he had found out, he was certain that there was no way he would be able to see Alex without knocking him out.

All Tom could think of was Alex fucking his wife. Ex-wife. Soon-to-be ex-wife. He knew that it shouldn’t bother him so much; it wasn’t as if he still had feelings for Ria, he had chosen Emilia and he was so glad that he had.

Tom knew perfectly well that stressing over the stupid mistake he and Emilia had made was just a smoke screen over the god damned Alex issue.

All roads lead back to Alex “fucktard” Claster. Ever since he had arrived in their lives, he had been a cancer. He had imparted nothing but negativity on their lives. From being the repeat cause of Bill’s heartbreak to being the reason Bill spent most of summer 2015 off his face on LSD, Tom was sick of the sight of the cunt. Tom didn’t think that it was possible for him to hate the man more but knowing that he was the reason his marriage failed was unbelievable. Even Tom didn’t think that Alex could possibly sink so low as to fuck his wife.

The thought of the two of them together made his stomach turn over. Tom gritted his teeth at the thought of Ria riding Alex. Ria underneath Alex. Alex bending her over…

“Look, don’t worry. I promise that I won’t be sitting you down in a month to tell you I’m pregnant. I’m surprised you’re so worried, anyway. You must have had unprotected sex before?”

“Well, sure but not since I was like nineteen, before Ria. And I guess you don’t really think about that shit when you’re a kid,” Tom shrugged, “There could be little Toms running about for all I know.”

“That’s a weird thought.”

They parked and made their way up to Emilia’s apartment. When the apartment door shut behind them, they took a moment to kiss, slowly and deeply, in the hallway. Tom really loved to just stop and hold Emilia in his arms while he poured his passion into their kiss.

“I love you.” He murmured, leading her into the bedroom. When he paused behind her to unzip her dress and slip it off her shoulders so that it pooled at her feet and kiss the back of her neck, it was out of pure affection, not animalistic desire. What a marked difference from only an hour earlier.

“I love you, too.” Emilia turned around and wrapped her arms around Tom’s neck as he held her waist.

“Are you ok? Are you still high?” Tom asked quietly, kissing her chastely as he smoothed her hair back, cupping her face in his hand to run the pad of his thumb over her cheek, muted concern in his eyes.

“A little. Not much. I feel good,” She whispered, “And I don’t know if it’s because you’re vulnerable tonight or if it’s the coke, or both but I’ve never felt so close to you.”

“I think it’s because you took my dick bareback,” Tom laughed.

“You know…if you still want to…I’d love to start looking for an apartment together when you get back from Russia,” Emilia murmured, earning herself a small, cautious smile.

“Really? You’re sure?” Tom raised his eyebrows, surprised, “I didn’t…I wasn’t sure if you were ready to talk about that again.”

“I am. I want to be with you and I want to live with you…I hate it when you go home and I have to sleep here alone. And now I know you’re past Ria and-”

“Ria was having an affair with Alex,” Tom blurted out, interrupting Emilia who stared at him, slack jawed while Tom swallowed, the knot in his stomach tightening. Saying the words made it suddenly feel so real. He stepped back from their intimate embrace and sat on the edge of her bed with a heavy sigh.

“What?” Emilia gasped, frowning, confused as she sat beside him, taking his hand in hers.

“Yeah. And my head is so _fucked_ about it that I don’t know if I am past Ria because if I was I wouldn’t be so freaked about it and-” Tom was cut off by a hand over his mouth. He turned towards her.

“You’re stupid,” She said bluntly with a slight shake of the head.

“What the fuck?” Tom swore with a frown.

“You know you’re not upset because Ria had an affair, right?”

“What?”

“You’re upset because of what Alex did to Bill, not because of what he did to _you_.”

“But he wasn’t with Bill then.”

“No, but you know that it would devastate him.” Emilia pointed out and Tom didn’t reply as he contemplated the point she was making. He let her slip off his t-shirt and coax him into bed, “Come here, sweetie.” He let her embrace him and he nestled into her chest, feeling almost childlike as she gently pulled the tie out of his thick hair and ran her hand through it soothingly. He draped an arm around her waist and they just lay together quietly in the soft, autumnal lighting from the dim bedside lamp. It was beautifully silent and Tom was just slipping off into a comfortable sleep when he was jolted awake by a loud, guttural groan.

“Did you hear that?” Emilia whispered as Tom sat up, blinking rapidly.

“Yeah, what was it?”

“I don’t-” She was cut off by a series of loud, continual, erotic moans.

“Are we…are we listening to your sister…” Tom trailed off awkwardly, looking over at Emilia who had horror scrawled across her face.

“Oh my god, she’s having sex!” She gasped belatedly, “What do I do?” She turned towards Tom who just shook his head, bewildered.

“Who is she even having sex with? She was just hanging out with us, Georg and Meg and Bill and Al-” Tom cut himself off with wide eyes.

“Oh, _fuck_ no!” Emilia shot up out of bed, stopping only when Tom leapt up to grab her wrist.

“C’mon, Em, there is _no way_ that Sofie would be fucking Alex.” All it took was a derisive look from Emilia to tell Tom that he was wrong, “Oh shit.” Tom scrambled out of bed and the two of them tore out of the room and along the corridor to the spare room.

When they burst into the room and Sofie shrieked, rolling off her partner to cover herself up in the sheets, Tom froze.

“ _Bill_?”

Tom could only stand by and watch in shock as Emilia stormed over and smacked Bill hard across the face.

“Em! What the fuck!”

“You want a smack too? He is in a _relationship_! What the fuck is wrong with you?” Emilia shouted while Tom locked eyes with Bill.

“They had an argument and I was comforting him!”

“Oh really? When I comfort people, I talk to them and give them wine. I do _not_ get on their dick!”

“Well, maybe that’s because you’re a fat cow!” Sofie shot back and Tom had to lunge forward to grab Emilia and pull her out of the room.

“You,” He said pointedly over at Sofie, “are a fucking bitch.” Tom slammed the door shut and tentatively headed into the kitchen where Emilia was pouring herself a large glass of red wine.

“Your brother was fucking my sister! How messed up is that!” She laughed in exasperation, taking a long drink as Tom approached her, shaking his head.

“I don’t even-”

“I thought you said he was gay?” Emilia spat out, glaring at him accusingly.

“He is!” Tom asserted before realising that the sentiment was ridiculous now, “Well…I thought he was,” He frowned, “I don’t know! I’m as confused as you are! He’s never slept with a girl before! He’s never even had a _crush_ on a girl before! He’s always loved cock! Bill loves cock. He’s a cock whore. He is a total man slut for men!” Tom cried out, painfully aware that he sounded ridiculous. They paused for a moment while Emilia drank the rest of her glass and sat at the small kitchen table.

“She’s never spoken to me like that before,” She murmured, the lump in her throat clear. Tom pulled out a chair and sat beside her, taking her hand in his.

“It was just the embarrassment of being caught, that’s all,” He said softly, “She didn’t mean it.” Emilia scoffed.

“Of course she meant it. I _am_ fat.”

“I meant that she didn’t mean to be a dick to you.”

“You know, you’re supposed to say ‘no, you’re not fat Em, you’re beautiful.’”

“Hey, if I told you that you weren’t fat, you wouldn’t believe me. And you shouldn’t because, yeah, you’re fat. So, what? Why is that a _bad_ word? Being fat and being beautiful aren’t mutually exclusive. I’m not going to feed you bullshit that you know isn’t true, you know that. _But_ , you are not a cow. That was purely her being a cock.” Tom tried to catch her eye, squeezing her hand.

“Did I overreact? Was me slapping Bill and yelling at Sofie totally unnecessary?”

“You walked in on your little sister fucking your boyfriend’s brother who happens to be in a gay relationship…no, I don’t think you overreacted.”

“Wow. My sister’s been fucking my boyfriend’s brother who’s in a relationship with a guy who had an affair with my boyfriend’s wife. That’s pretty messed up, right?” She scoffed, shaking her head.

“You what?” Both Tom and Emilia snapped their heads towards where Bill was standing with an entirely confused look scored across his face.

“What?” Tom internally groaned at his lame attempt at playing dumb as he stared at his bewildered twin.

“She just said that Alex had an affair with Ria.”

“Bill-” Tom stood up and took a tentative step towards his brother.

“No, no. Is it true? Did they have an affair?” In the middle of Emilia’s kitchen, Bill and Tom stood a few feet away from each other, looking each other dead in the eye.

“Yes.” Tom could feel his heart break when he saw the pain burn in Bill’s wide eyes, “I’m sorry,” He whispered, opening his mouth to say something else when Bill turned on his heel and rushed out.

“Should I-”

“Go!”

Tom sprinted out of Emilia’s apartment and ran down the corridor, catching Bill just as he was about to run down the stairs.

“Stop!” Tom cried out, blinking hard with a sigh as Bill stopped and turned around, his eyes red.

“I know you think I’m stupid,” Bill murmured and Tom hung his head.

“I don’t think you’re stupid. I think you’re a fool who’s in love with someone who doesn’t deserve you.”

“You’re sure that he had an affair with Ria?” Bill asked, his voice uncharacteristically small.

“Did he have a chest reduction last year?” Tom asked, tentatively, his heart sinking when Bill nodded slowly.

“Yeah, so what?” He asked, confused.

“Ria didn’t have a miscarriage. But, the day she left me, Alex had chest reduction surgery on my health insurance. He somehow managed to do it under Ria’s name.” Tom hated relaying the story, even more so now that he had all the pieces of the ridiculous puzzle. Bill’s frown deepened as he shook his head.

“So…he didn’t pay for it? You did?”

“Yeah.”

“For fuck’s sake!” Bill cried, kicking the wall in frustration while Tom groaned in realisation.

“Oh, please don’t tell me that you gave him money for it?”

“I gave him twenty thousand dollars.” Bill admitted and, for a split second, Tom wanted to punch him for being so stupid, “We weren’t even together but I knew how self-conscious he was about his chest so I…I just wrote him a check.” Seeing the pain in his brother’s eyes and the tears threatening to roll down his cheeks made Tom pull Bill into a tight embrace.

“I’m sorry,” Tom whispered, his chest aching as Bill clung desperately to his back and let the dam burst, his tears soaking Tom’s shirt as he trembled with sobs.

“I love him so much, Tom. I hate myself for it,” Bill sniffed, the sobs still pouring out, “But I do! I can’t help it!”

“I know, I know,” Tom murmured soothingly, rubbing his back as if he were a child.

“This must seem ridiculous,” Bill managed to scoff between tears, “I mean, I was just fucking someone else.” Tom broke away just a little bit.

“What were you and Alex arguing about?” He asked, while Bill rolled his eyes as he shook his head.

“It was stupid. He was trying to convince me to let him come on tour with us but I said no because I knew you wouldn’t like it and, y’know, we aren’t on the best of terms right now so I didn’t want you to be _more_ pissed off with me and he just got so mad and Sofie was so lovely and we _were_ just talking, Tom, honest! We were talking in her room for like two hours before I kissed her. And _I_ kissed _her_ so don’t blame her, she didn’t-”

“It’s ok,” Tom tried to reassure Bill but instead he pulled away.

“No, it’s not! I cheated on my boyfriend! I fucked your girlfriend’s sister! That’s _so messed up_!”

“No, no it’s not! Given how many times Alex has fucked around, you are more than entitled to one fuck. And who cares that it’s Emilia’s sister? As long as you weren’t a dick, it’s fine. I’m more interested in the fact that you _had sex with a girl_!” Tom braved a small grin and Bill laughed between his tears.

“Yeah, that surprised me too.”

“Have you ever-”

“Had sex with a girl? No.”

“So, why…?”

“I dunno,” Bill shrugged, “In the moment, I wanted her…it didn’t matter whether she was a man or a woman.”

“Um…how…” Tom trailed off, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly, “How was it?” Bill shrugged, equally as awkward.

“It was…I don’t know. It was different. Definitely different. Good though. Yeah. Good.”

“Wow.”

“This doesn’t mean I’m straight though. I’m still crazy for cock.”


	28. Gay, Straight or Bisexual?

“What’s your problem?”

“My problem is that he’s gay!”

“Well, clearly he isn’t.”

“Oh, please. Just because he fucks you doesn’t mean that he’s magically straight!”

Sofie stormed out of the room and slammed the door to the spare room shut. She flopped down onto the small single bed and took a couple deep breaths before being distracted by her phone vibrating with a message.

_I can call you tomorrow night if you want? B x_

_Yeah ofc! Can’t wait to hear your voice S x_

“Come in!” Sofie called at the sound of a small knock at the door. Emilia slid inside, tentatively sitting at the foot of the bed, “Come to have another go at me?”

“No. I’m not having a go at you for the sake of it, Sof. I’m just…worried.”

“Why can’t you understand? I really like him, I’ve had a crush on him since I was a kid, don’t you remember?”

“I do understand. Of course, I understand, the Kaulitz twins are so intoxicating. I mean, Tom is the best thing that’s ever happened to me! But all I can see with Bill is what Tom’s told me. And that’s that he’s been in a _lot_ of relationships – all with men. He’s slept around a _lot_ – with men! You can’t blame me for being concerned.” Sofie didn’t reply and so, seeing that it was a lost cause, Emilia sighed and stood, leaving, shutting the door quietly behind her.

Sofie picked up her phone to send Bill another message but thought better of it, setting it back down again. In a world where it was more acceptable than ever to have a fluid sexuality, Sofie knew that perhaps Bill’s identity wasn’t as straightforward as gay, straight, or bisexual. She also knew that it was rather politically incorrect to request a clarification on his sexuality, but how could she not? She needed to know if there were feelings on his part or if he was simply experimenting with his sexuality after years of being exclusively involved with men.

Sofie knew that she shouldn’t have allowed herself to fall so hard so incredibly quickly for Bill. But Emilia was right, he was intoxicating. As soon as he got you into his world, you couldn’t leave by choice. It was clear why the twins had so many fans who were so incredibly dedicated. They were addictive. Even more so when you got a physical piece of them.

Sofie was a strong woman. She liked to think that she took after her mother and, more so, her sister – her second mother.

However, she had never been strong when it came to men.

She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because she grew up without a male influence but once she had a man in her life, she immediately revolved her entire world around that person.

She couldn’t do that again.

*

“The whole thing is super weird.”

_“I know.”_

“It’s really weird! Your sister has much sexting my brother!”

_“I know.”_

“He’s gay!”

_“I know.”_

“Doesn’t it bother you that he’s sniffing around your little sister?”

_“Sniffing? You call them fucking, ‘sniffing’? It’s gone way beyond sniffing, my friend.”_

“Friend?”

_“Um. It’s gone way beyond sniffing, my lover.”_

“Ok, that just sounded creepy.”

_“Creepy? What are you, a girl?”_

“Fuck off.”

_“I dunno what’s going on. She doesn’t want to talk about it. But, for you, I mean, she’s got to be better than Alex, right?”_

Emilia was right about that. It had been a week since she and Tom had walked in on Bill and Sofie having sex in Emilia’s spare room. Tom had supposed that it had been a one-time thing between Bill and Sofie but apparently, he had been wrong. The day before, he had been surprised to learn that the pair had been calling and messaging each other several times a day since they had gone to Russia. Emilia hadn’t told him earlier because Sofie had sworn her to secrecy and Bill had felt awkward.

_“He does like Sofie, doesn’t he? He’s not just fucking her around, is he?”_

“I don’t think so.”

_“Tom…”_

“I’m serious! I think Bill really likes her but he’s feeling pretty confused…I don’t think he’s ever been attracted to a woman before.”

_“He has broken up with Alex, hasn’t he?”_

“Yeah. Normally I would say that splitting up with someone via WhatsApp is awful but with that cunt it seemed rather appropriate.”

_“Did you get in touch with your lawyer, by the way?”_

“Yeah. I’ve offered Ria a straight twenty thousand dollars upon selling the house in L.A. as a clean break. No alimony, none of my cars, nothing. If she agrees to that then we should be divorced in six weeks or so.”

_“Oh, Tom. That’s incredible!”_

“And I talked to Bill. We’re going to put the house in L.A. on the market as soon as we get back to Berlin next week. Did you see the apartment I sent you last night?”

_“Yeah, I love it. I really like the balcony and the bedroom looks huge! Plus, it’s way under budget too. Shall I call them, set up a viewing?”_

“Yeah and ask them if they offer a maid service. I fucking hate cleaning.”

_“You’re a lazy fuck.”_

“Hey, I just-Oh, hold on a sec, babe.” Tom cut himself off as Bill walked in, “What?”

“Can I talk to you?”

“Uh, sure. Hang on,” Tom turned back to his phone, “Babe, can I call you back later? Ok, love you, bye.”

Bill sat on the edge of the bed, fidgeting.

“What’s up?”

“I, uh, well I…” Bill paused to swallow, hard, “You know how I’ve been messaging Sofie?”

“Yeah?”

“Well…I,” Bill coughed, “I don’t really know how to say this but I…I don’t really know what to say to her.” Tom raised an eyebrow.

“What do you mean?”

“Uh…well, I mean, we’ve been sexting and…well, that’s ok but she said she wanted to…y’know…talk _dirty_ on the phone and I just…I mean, I don’t know what to say! With texting, I have a bit of time to think but…she’s the only girl I’ve been with and I don’t know what girls like and shit. What do I say?” As Bill spilled out his worried ramblings, Tom just stared at him with an amused raised eyebrow.

“Wait, wait a minute. Let me get this straight. Are you asking me to teach you how to dirty talk?” The twins looked at each in surreal realisation for a moment before Bill nodded, slowly.

“Yeah…yeah, I guess so.”

“Are you for real?”

“Um…yeah. Oh, come on! Remember when we were sixteen and you helped me pick out some gay porn?”

“In that dodgy shop in Hamburg?” Tom asked, grimacing at the memory.

“Yeah!”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, tell me how to phone fuck!”

“Gotta say, I admire your flawless logic.” Tom rolled his eyes as he became uncomfortably aware that Bill wasn’t going to let the issue go, “Ok,” Tom sat up properly in bed while Bill crossed his legs, sitting up in attention, “Well…what do you wanna know? I mean, how different can it be?”

“Well…I dunno, I mean, guys generally like to just get right into it. Y’know, a few dirty words to jack off to and…yeah. It can’t be like that with women?”

“No…” Tom coughed and reached over to the joint he had rolled before Emilia had called, lighting it, “It’s not. Look, we just want to get our dicks wet, right?” Bill nodded, “We don’t really care about the build-up, right?” Bill nodded, “Ok, well, forget _all_ of that. See, for women, it is _all about_ the build-up. See, for guys, an orgasm is purely about stimulation, it’s not like that for women.” Bill just stared at Tom, a confused eyebrow raised.

“What?” Bill spluttered, gratefully accepting the joint Tom offered.

“An orgasm is largely mental for women. Their _minds_ need to be aroused too.” As Tom spoke, Bill looked at him, entirely dumbfounded.

“How the fuck do I _arouse her mind_?”

“That’s the easy part. You just make her feel like she’s the single most desirable woman on Earth. Like there is no woman that you would pick over her. Like every part of her is perfect. So, you have to build it up real slow because guys can jack off in a few minutes but it usually takes a lot longer for a woman.”

“It does? How long?”

“I dunno, it depends. Like when Emilia and I do phone sex and that, it takes her maybe twenty minutes.”

“ _What_?”

“But Ria often liked to drag it out so we were sometimes on the phone for like an hour, maybe two.”

“I have to prepare material for _two hours_?”

“Jesus,” Tom rolled his eyes, taking the joint from Bill to take a long drag, “You’re not acting in a movie, you don’t write a script.”

“So, what do I _do_?” Bill wailed, earning himself an impatient, albeit awkward, eyeroll from Tom.

“I tell you what, I’m going to set you up with some James Deen videos,” Tom said with a sigh, grabbing his iPad while Bill sat opposite him, cross-legged, still completely confused.

“What help is James Dean going to be to me?”

“No,” Tom muttered between a drag, “Not Dean with an ‘ea’, Deen with two ‘e’s. He’s a porn star.” Tom was oblivious to Bill’s dumbfounded reaction until he looked up, “What?”

“You want me to watch a load of straight porn?”

“You know, if you’re going to insist on having sex with a woman, you shouldn’t be so weirded out about watching straight porn.”

“No, I mean… _porn_. Isn’t it totally degrading to women? So how can it help me? I want to _seduce_ Sofie, not tie her up and fist her ass.” Tom tuned out as Bill spoke and scrolled on his iPad until he found what he was looking for, passing it over to Bill.

“This guy does a lot of freaky porn _but_ he also does a lot of these romantic scenes. He’s got _loads_ of female fans – they call him the heartthrob of porn. This is a playlist from Pornhub,” Tom said, pointing at the screen, “Ria would send this playlist to her friends if their partners were a bit shit in bed and it used to really work.”

“Really?” Bill asked, disbelief tinging his tone.

“Seriously. She made me watch that video,” Tom pointed to the screen, “when we first got together because…well, I wasn’t great at the, uh,” he coughed, awkwardly, “the oral stuff. And it totally worked. Well, that and practice, anyway.”

“Ok, I guess it can’t hurt to try.” Bill took the iPad and made to leave the room as Tom lay back, smoking his joint.

“Oh, one more thing,” Tom called out, making Bill spin back around.

“What?”

“If those videos don’t turn you on at all, you might want to rethink this whole Sofie thing.” Bill opened his mouth to protest but shut it and just nodded as he left.

As Bill shut the door, Tom leaned over to grab his laptop but ended up sighing and falling back, switching on the television instead. He flicked through the channels, entirely unimpressed.

A five-star hotel in St Petersburg really wasn’t the same as a five-star hotel in Paris or London. Sure, it was nice enough and he had a king-sized bed but Russian Netflix didn’t have the series he had been watching and the television had no German or English channels. Usually, after a concert, Tom was exhausted and liked to just relax with a joint and binge watching a crappy show. And considering that they had to get up at 8am – a completely ungodly hour to someone who was used to not rolling out of bed until the mid-afternoon – to travel to Moscow, Tom knew that he really should be going to sleep soon.

There was going to be an after party after the show in Moscow the next night. It wasn’t something anyone particularly wanted to do but the sales of the VIP tickets had been really disappointing on the Russian leg so they had decided to throw one last minute. They made the tickets only a hundred euros and they had already sold a thousand hundred tickets. One hundred thousand euros. Split between the four of them, it was a sweet twenty-five thousand euros straight in his pocket.

Tom rolled onto his side and picked up his tablet. Going onto the internet, he went onto his bookmarked links and clicked onto the last webpage he had saved.

He smiled.

That twenty-five thousand euros was going to come in _very_ useful.


	29. Hamburg/Berlin

“Emilia! I want you naked with your ass in the air!” Tom called as he burst into Emilia’s apartment, stopping dead as Sofie appeared in front of him, “Oh. Hello.”

“I would smack you across the face for that but I would love to give you a hug.” Sofie beamed up at him, earning herself a bewildered, wide eyed look, “No need to look so terrified, Tom.” Not really knowing what to do, Tom awkwardly leaned down to hug Sofie briefly, jumping away as quickly as he could, “I don’t have _cooties_ , you know.”

“Is Emilia here?”

“She went to get a pizza,” Bill said, coming out of the kitchen, topless with a beer in hand and it was then that Tom realised Sofie was wearing Bill’s black and red tartan shirt, “What?” Bill asked with a frown and Tom quickly wiped the grimace off his face.

“Nothing,” Tom muttered, walking past the pair of them to grab a beer out of the fridge.

“Hey,” Bill murmured as he followed behind him, Sofie apparently having gone back into the bedroom, “I wanted to thank you…for the videos. They, ah, seem to have worked,” Bill said with a bashful grin.

“Oh, so _that’s_ why she wanted to hug me,” Tom laughed in realisation, “Oh God, _ew_! I helped you to make my girlfriend’s sister cum!” Bill rolled his eyes and cracked open another beer.

“Wow, and people call you the smart twin.”

“I hope you’re going to replace that beer,” Tom muttered, pointedly.

“I bought it, actually.”

“You know what, this is really weird. Can’t you take Sofie back to our place or something?”

“Oh, actually, the sex was kind of a bonus. I came here to speak to you, I thought you’d have been here earlier. What have you been doing?”

“Nothing,” Tom scratched the back of his neck, awkwardly as Bill raised an eyebrow.

“Nothing?”

“Well, y’know, I went for lunch and did a bit of shopping…” Tom trailed off with a shrug.

“You went out for lunch and went shopping by yourself?”

“Yes.”

“When you have a girlfriend who you haven’t seen in like two weeks?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“What is this, the Spanish inquisition?” Tom burst out, irritated, “What have you been doing?”

“I’ve been having sex.”

“Oh, shut up.” Tom shook his head, grabbed his beer, and disappeared out of the kitchen and into Emilia’s bedroom, leaving Bill in the kitchen confused.

It wasn’t long before Tom heard the front door being opened and his stomach roared as Emilia opened the bedroom door, smiling as she saw him lying on her bed. With a soft smile, Tom rolled off the bed and took the pizza box off her so he could pull her into him, kissing her softly with a groan at the base of his throat.

“Mmm, was that a horny groan or a hungry groan?” Emilia giggled in Tom’s arms, drawing her arms around his neck.

“Both,” He grinned, leaning in to kiss her again, deeper this time, unable to resist the urge to grope her ass, “Fuck, did you get even sexier?” He laughed with a self-satisfied grin as Emilia worked on pulling his shirt up over his head. They kissed, hard, just for a moment before Tom spun her around, pinning her against the door as he yanked up her skirt, moaning when he saw she wasn’t wearing any panties.

“I thought you might be horny when you came over,” She giggled, gasping when she felt Tom’s grip on her hip tighten as he pushed himself inside her. He kissed her neck with a shuddering breath, reaching a hand down to start to rub her clit softly, almost teasingly, loving the shiver that went through her body at his touch. For a moment, they managed to contain themselves, keeping their moans soft and their groans small.

Only for a moment, though.

They moved together like animals, fucking quick and hard. Tom’s hand wrapped around Emilia’s throat as he thrust inside her, the desperation for friction outweighing their want for longevity.

“Mmm I’ve missed you,” Emilia giggled in the middle of a gasp as Tom pulled out and they collapsed in each other’s arms on the bed and grabbed the pizza box.

“Did you view that apartment yesterday?” Tom asked as they ate, one arm draped lazily around Emilia’s shoulders.

“Yeah, I love it! It’s perfect and yes, they have a butler service you lazy fuck.”

“Well good because we contacted the real estate agent in L.A. yesterday and our house is officially on the market.”

“Wow,” Emilia said, thoughtfully, “How do you feel about that? Is it going to be weird, selling that place?” Tom shrugged.

“I guess. It was kinda my marital home though so I suppose it’s more of a relief. Especially with that debt with Treehouse hanging over me. And I get to move in with you so I’m not about to complain.”

They lay together, lazily eating pizza and peacefully enjoying each other’s company before they were interrupted by a soft tapping on the bedroom door.

“If you guys are done fucking, can I talk to Tom?” Tom made a face at the sound of Bill’s request and kissed Emilia before reluctantly rolling out of bed.

“What?” Tom hissed as he stepped out into the corridor, shutting the door behind him, “Am I not allowed to spend the day in bed with my woman, now?”

“We need to talk.” Bill asserted before turning on his heel and heading into the lounge, taking a seat, “We haven’t really talked about the move,” He mumbled, looking up at Tom who soon took a tentative seat opposite.

“Look, I know it’s a big thing and it’ll be weird for you to live by yourself but it will be weird for me to live without you too and you know you can come around whenever you-”

“I’m going to move to Hamburg.” Bill interrupted, avoiding Tom’s bewildered eyes.

“You’re… _what_?” Tom asked, completely aghast, “Hamburg?” Bill nodded and Tom could only gape for a moment, stunned.

“I should have told you earlier, I know but I didn’t want to say anything until I found a place and put down a deposit and-”

“Woah,” Tom interrupted Bill, “You’ve already bought a place?”

“Yeah. I didn’t want to tell you earlier and freak you out for no reason.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Tom held his head in his hands, breathing heavily, “How can you move to Hamburg? What about me? What about _us_?” Tom looked up, his stomach in knots as he watched Bill swallow hard.

“You had a point before when you said that we aren’t one person. We are separate people and though we’re probably more alike than any other two people…we are still different. We aren’t clones of each other. I don’t want to stay in Berlin. Hamburg is where I need to go to pursue my fashion line and of course I would still love to do a collection with Em-”

“You remembered that, huh?” Tom murmured. He had mentioned the possibility of Bill asking Emilia to do a clothing collection together to help kick start her fashion career, off handed, after their concert in St Petersburg, but he didn’t think Bill had been listening.

“Of course. But you were right, it’s time that we discover who we are. As individuals. Of course, we’ll always make music and you’ll always be my favourite person in the world but I-”

“Want some space.”

“You were right. We need space from each other before we end up completely resenting each other.”

“What about Sofie?”

“She’s coming to Hamburg with me.”

“She’s _what_?” Bill and Tom looked up to see Emilia just walking into the living room, stopped in her tracks by Bill’s revelation, “Sofie is going to _Hamburg_ with you?” Bill shot up to his feet.

“Well…yes but it was her idea, I didn’t push her into it or anything!”

“You have to be kidding me. You met her two weeks ago! Hell, until two weeks ago, you were _gay_! And now, what? You’re magically straight and want a serious relationship with a girl you barely know?” Tom could only watch as Emilia shouted, storming across to stand before Bill with utter contempt upon her face.

“Ok, I’m not _magically_ straight! It’s not like I woke up one morning and said to myself ‘hey, I don’t like cock up my ass anymore!’ Why don’t you stop focussing on my sexuality and open your mind to the fact that I might actually be _falling_ for Sofie?”

“Oh, please. Two weeks ago, you were hopelessly in love with some asshole who cheated on you with everyone in Christendom and now you’re suddenly falling in love with my sister? What, do you fall in love with every whore who will service your dick?” Emilia cried out, “She is as good as my daughter and I will not let you break her heart, you little shit!”

The three of them were silent for a moment. Emilia with fury upon her face, Bill with terror upon his and Tom…well. Tom was just plain stunned.

“Emilia, I-”

“Get out of my apartment.”

“But-”

“Now!” Emilia demanded and Bill looked over to Tom, as if he expected him to say something but Tom just looked at him expressionless so he turned on his heel and left.

“He didn’t even say goodbye to her,” Emilia scoffed.

“We’re going to be living in different cities,” Tom murmured, “We’ll go days and weeks without seeing each other.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Emilia sat beside Tom and drew him into a hug, “I’m sorry.”

“We just spent the last two weeks in each other’s constant company and he never even mentioned moving to Hamburg.” Tom was still in shock. He wanted space. He wanted to discover himself as his own person away from Bill. But he never envisaged living in a different city from his twin. That was unimaginable and he could not believe that that was what Bill wanted.

“What’s going on? Where’s Bill?” Tom looked up to see Sofie padding into the room wearing a robe and a towel on her head.

“Uh, he left,” Emilia mumbled, earning herself a knowing nod and eyeroll from her sister.

“I see. He told you about Hamburg, huh? I’m not a child anymore, Em and you’re _not_ my mother. I guess I better get dressed and go find him.” If it wasn’t for the fact that she sort of knew that Sofie was right, Emilia would have gone after her but, instead, she cuddled on the sofa with Tom.

“I love you,” She whispered, smoothing back Tom’s flyaway hairs to kiss the top of his head, “You want some more pizza, sweetie?” As he nodded, she stood up and started to make her way over to the bedroom.

“Em?” She stopped and turned at the sound of her name being called and could hardly believe her eyes when she saw Tom kneeling before her, “Will you marry me?”


	30. How Did You Know?

Tom didn’t know why he did it. He had the ring in his jacket pocket but he hadn’t planned to do it then. He hadn’t had any plan at all really. He had bought the ring with part of the fat pay check they had been given for their Dream Machine tour but he hadn’t planned to use it at least until his divorce had been finalised. But in that moment when Bill had confirmed that he would be living in a different city to him and Emilia had put her worries about her own sister aside to comfort him, he felt a compulsion to just…do it. So, when she stood up to fetch the rest of their pizza for him, he hadn’t been able to resist. On impulse, Tom had gone down on one knee, pulled out the diamond ring and just done it. He just proposed.

It was uncharacteristic, that was for sure. It was pretty uncharacteristic for Tom to do anything very spontaneous really; a lifetime of living with Bill had made Tom the rational, more cautious twin. Not overly so, of course, he still drank, smoked, and did drugs. But he was the type of person who watched other people take cocaine before he tried it himself for the first time when he was seventeen. While Bill took almost any drug that was offered to him – excluding crack and smack – Tom would refrain, look after him and, when he proved to be just fine, then Tom would take it for himself.

But when it came to marriage, Tom was incredibly cautious. It wasn’t something he had ever actually wanted to do; his own parents’ divorce had been so incredibly traumatic that he had never seen it in his future until his relationship with Ria had become serious. His parents’ divorce had destroyed him mentally and had had a remarkable lasting impact on him. He even refused to have any contact with his father, deeming him and his tawdry affair to be the reason their family had been fractured and broken.

Their parents’ divorce had affected both Bill and Tom deeply, but in wholly different ways. Though he knew it was messed up, for a long time, Tom had believed that the reason Bill was gay was because of their parents’ divorce. Tom had believed that Bill’s subconscious simply wished to avoid the traditional family dynamic and did so by expressing an attraction to other men. He knew now, of course, that that was ridiculous and incredibly ignorant. But Bill did spend many years avoiding any sort of romance. Though he craved the intimacy of a relationship, he physically could not allow himself to be able to indulge in such a luxury. On the rare occasions that Bill had gone on a date, his intense anxiety would either force him to cancel or bail on the date halfway through.

Tom, on the other hand, was the absolute direct opposite. He shared a common anxiety with Bill with girls but his anxiety manifested itself differently. He was unbelievably insecure about the way he looked and, for years, he had worn almost comically oversized clothes. His fears and insecurities manifested themselves in a paranoia about the way he looked and he allayed those fears by dating numerous beautiful girls who – for reasons unknown to him at the time – seemed to fall at his feet. Contrary to what he boasted in interviews, he didn’t have sex with many of them and if he did, it was far from intimate. Tom often stayed pretty much fully clothed, occasionally taking off his t-shirt.

Ria was the first woman he had had sex with where he took off his jeans.

Ultimately, however, the goal for both Bill and Tom had been the same: to avoid intimacy. To avoid letting people into their personal space. To avoid letting people get too close.

For all her faults, Tom had to give Ria credit. She was the first woman who Tom had let get close to him. She had broken down so many barriers and walls that he had built up around him. She was the first woman he had ever been in love with.

Tom supposed that it was for a similar reason that Bill had found it so impossible to let go of Alex.

After moving to L.A. and seeing the happiness that Tom had shared with Ria, Bill had decided that he had to try and let go of his anxiety and finally seek out what he had always really wanted – a soulmate. He had attended therapy and slowly worked through his issues. Tom hadn’t thought that it would work but he had been proven spectacularly wrong when Bill started going out on date after date. For a few months, it seemed as if Bill had a date every other night. Being the heartthrob that he was, Tom knew that a lot of people would be stunned to learn that Bill hadn’t lost his virginity until he was twenty-three.

For all his waiting, Tom always thought that it was something of a shame that it had been a one-night stand.

Though Bill went on many dates, he could never find anyone who he ‘clicked’ with, as he would say. He found the men boring or stupid or perfectly fine but too different to have a connection with.

When their friend, Alex, had asked Bill out on a date, Tom had scoffed. Alex wasn’t creative or artistic or into fashion. He had an entirely different sense of humour to Bill and though he was in their social group, he and Bill had never been particularly close and the subject of them dating had never been mentioned, despite Alex being bisexual. So, Tom had been surprised when Bill had agreed to go for dinner with Alex. He was even more surprised when Bill had returned later that evening with a dopey grin on his face and he positively gushed for hours about how _amazing_ Alex was.

It was strange for Tom to see Bill in a relationship but, at the same time, it was brilliant. Bill was eating properly, woke up with a smile on his face every day and didn’t need to smoke weed to relax.

Proposing to Ria had been the single most thought out decision he had ever made. He agonised over it for months. He wanted to be absolutely certain that it would last – he didn’t think that he would be able to handle going through a divorce just like his parents. But Tom wanted to express his love for Ria to the world and display their love and commitment. He wanted to prove to her how much he loved her and be secure in the knowledge that he would forever have someone who loved him unconditionally.

Though he hadn’t known it at the time, Ria leaving was perhaps the nicest thing she had ever done for him. Experiencing the worst heartbreak he had ever known – and getting through it – taught him that he was stronger than even he knew and that he really could deal with being hurt.

Most importantly, however, it guided him to Emilia.

Emilia had taught Tom that he could love again. He didn’t know that his heart was big enough to allow another person inside. He guessed that, after Ria had broken his heart, he had unknowingly opened his mind to women who he would never have looked twice at before. When he had seen Emilia in Prada, and then again in McDonald’s that day, he had seen her bright eyes, infectious smile and long, glossy hair. He had seen her beautiful taste in clothes and her warm laugh. But, most importantly, he had seen her soft, mild manner and kind heart. Before, all those important things came very much second to a flawless body. But he had fallen in love with her body because she herself was so damn perfect to him.

Tom could tell that although his bandmates liked Emilia, they were somewhat bewildered by the fact that he was attracted to her. Tom liked models. He liked long, lithe legs, modest breasts, a tight ass, and a taut stomach. He was superficial, looking for a trophy to have on his arm. The personality always came second. But, oddly enough, Tom didn’t believe he had ever been more attracted to any other woman than he was to Emilia. No one had ever turned him on like she did. No one had ever made him fall in love so quick and so hard. Not even Ria.

Tom and Emilia’s relationship was deeply passionate, of course, but it certainly hadn’t been based on incredible sex. Their intense, beautiful love making came after a whirlwind romance where they fell in love with each other. Tom had fallen in love with her kindness. With the way she made him feel like the most important person in the world. Emilia rationalised his panicked thoughts. She helped him solve his problems instead of just offering her pussy to temporarily distract him from them.

Emilia had her own problems, of course. Problems and issues in her life that were worse than anything that he had ever gone through. Tom wanted to help her through them. He wanted to give her security and make sure that she never had to worry about anything ever again. He wanted to show her love all day and make love to her all night.

The point was that he didn’t need to think. He didn’t need to agonise. The decision was easy.

Tom wanted to marry Emilia. He wanted to be with her for the rest of his life.

“You…you know?” Emilia gasped, a hand on her heart, “How do you know?” Tom frowned, still holding out the diamond ring.

“Know? Know what?”

“That I’m pregnant. I mean, that _is_ why you’re doing this, isn’t it?”


	31. Jorg ≠ Tom

“You…you’re what?”

“I’m pregnant, Tom.”

“You didn’t know?” Emilia gasped, a hand over her mouth.

“Oh yeah, this is the reaction of a person in the know!” Tom burst out, exasperated. He was absolutely stunned. He heart was already racing at his impulse proposal and so with Emilia’s shock revelation, his heartbeat felt like a mind spinning buzz.

When Emilia had broken the news that she was pregnant, the ring box that Tom was holding fell to the floor in shock. The diamond ring from Tiffany’s scattered unbearably noisily onto the tiled kitchen floor and Tom fell unceremoniously back onto his ass. He stared at her, slack jawed, wondering what on Earth he was supposed to say. What on Earth he was supposed to do. He didn’t know what he expected her to say when he got down on one knee, but this certainly wasn’t it. He couldn’t think, his mind was in a daze. It wasn’t actually that he didn’t know what to say or do, his brain hadn’t even got that far. His brain was still trying to remember _how_ to think.

It felt like an eternity had passed before Tom finally remembered himself and he registered that Emilia was waiting for a reaction from him. He looked up and his chest tightened as he saw the upset and distress etched across her face as she watched his stunned reaction, which she was clearly interpreting as disappointment

“I…I didn’t know until yesterday! My period is usually a bit erratic so I wasn’t overly concerned when it didn’t come as expected but I always keep a couple of tests just in case so I thought, y’know, why not, and-”

“It was positive?!”

“Well…yeah.”

“B-but we used a condom! We _always_ use protection!”

“Um…don’t you remember the night before you went to Russia? When we did coke?”

“You didn’t take the morning after pill?”

“The next day was Sunday so I couldn’t get it! I took it on Monday but waiting that long means it’s only like sixty percent effective.”

Swallowing hard, Tom forced himself to gain just a little bit of composure and, with shaky legs, Tom stood up and approached Emilia, drawing her into a tight hug. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, sighing as she clung to his back in return. He kissed her cheek in reassurance.

“You’re pregnant,” Tom breathed, hardly quite able to believe it, “You’re having my child?” Emilia nodded, apprehensively, swallowing at she looked up at him. She took a step back in shock as he took her face in his hands and kissed her softly, deeply.

“You’re not mad?” Emilia gasped with a shocked laugh.

“Mad?” Tom scoffed, light-hearted, “How could I be mad? I’m going to be a father!” Whatever reaction Emilia had been expecting, it certainly hadn’t been Tom gathering her up in his arms in nervous excitement.

“You’re happy?”

“I know it’s not ideal timing and we didn’t plan it and I’m scared as fuck but fuck yeah, I’m happy!” Tom cried out, holding Emilia tight as he kissed her again, his fingers weaving through her thick hair as a hand stroked down her body to her stomach. As they kissed, he gently edged up her shirt to place a careful hand on her bare skin, “You’re happy too, right?”

“You don’t have to be that gentle you know, I doubt it’s even a centimetre big yet,” Emilia giggled softly, her heart beating hard as Tom looked at her with wonder, reminiscent of a small child who’d been told they were going to spend Christmas at Disneyland, “You’re so sweet,” Emilia whispered, running the back of her hand over Tom’s cheek.

“I love you,” Tom tried his best to swallow the lump in his throat but it wasn’t happening and, instead, they both let the tears roll down their cheeks, “I can’t believe I’m going to be a Dad!”

And he was serious. He was scared. He was terrified. It hadn’t sunken in at all. But he knew that he was happy. He knew instinctively that they were going to make it work.

But, most importantly, Tom knew that he could do this.

*

Jorg Kaulitz had tried hard to be a good father.

Well. When it suited him, anyway.

When he first divorced the boys’ mother, Simone, Jorg would take the twins out every weekend. He would take them to the cinema, to football matches and buy them comic books and chocolate.

It was just a shame that he didn’t know his sons well enough to know that Tom couldn’t sit still to concentrate long enough on a film, Bill hated all sports and they both detested comic books and chocolate.

However, the effort was certainly appreciated. Tom just loved spending time with their father, perhaps more so even than Bill and, in a weird but prominent way, he missed doing things he didn’t like with his father when he stopped bothering.

Their mom chose a great new partner in their step father, Gordon and he was instrumental in their music career – there’s no way that Tom would have learnt to play the guitar or piano without him. And though Tom and Bill loved having Gordon around, he was really no substitute at all for Jorg. Tom remembered one weekend in particular where the twins turned down a trip to Disneyland with their mom and Gordon to spend a weekend just hanging out watching television with Jorg.

Tom had regretted the decision within hours of arriving at Jorg’s house. They didn’t do a thing all weekend. He hadn’t realised that when Jorg had said that they would be hanging out watching television, that that would be _all they would do_.

That’s all they ever did after a while. Until Jorg stopped paying child support and their mum had decided that enough was enough when he and Bill were eleven.

Of course, Tom hadn’t known it was an option at the time but as he got older, he started to resent Jorg for not fighting. For not paying whatever money their money wanted so he could see his sons again. For not taking their mother to court to demand the contact that he was entitled to. For not sending birthday and Christmas presents. For not showing that he cared.

Tom used to think that Jorg must have forgotten when their birthday was. He didn’t understand that, though because he knew exactly when _his_ birthday was.

When they had landed a record deal and they were recording their first album, _Schrei_ , Simone had phoned Jorg at Bill and Tom’s insistence. They had wanted him to come to the recording studio and show him what they had been working on, what they were _so_ proud of. Jorg said he would come. He said that he couldn’t wait to see his what his talented sons were up to.

He didn’t come.

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. He did come. Just not until _Durch den Monsun_ was released and it went straight to the top of the charts. Then, they couldn’t get rid of him. He was constantly texting, phoning and visiting. Tom and Bill had loved it. Jorg came to every show and had celebrated with them when _Schrei_ was released and received a gold certification.

When Jorg had asked them if he could borrow fifteen thousand euros, neither Tom nor Bill had thought anything of it; they had written him a check and he promised to pay them back in instalments. He asked that they didn’t tell their mother, and they respected his wish.

When he missed the first ten payments, Bill had broken and told their mother.

Who had promptly gone absolutely ballistic.

While the band was on tour and were playing a show in Leipzig, their whole family had attended. Including Jorg. Upon seeing her ex-husband, Simone had demanded that he write their sons a check for the full fifteen thousand euros, plus an extra five thousand to compensate them for being nearly a year late in paying it back. He had refused and, thinking that they were speaking in private, had proceeded to call her a “money grabbing bitch”, among other insults.

But Tom and Bill had heard.

At the time, Tom had had a particularly short temper and had stormed into the room, punching his father square in the face before marching him out of the building. He was particularly close to his mother and it made his blood boil to hear his absent father insult a woman who was so important and inspirational to him.

Following a few tumultuous years, the twins had officially cut ties with their father in 2011.

Tom had never particularly planned to have children but he had always promised himself that if he did have them, he would be there. With money, attention and love. His father had set a great example on how exactly not to be a dad.


	32. I Ordered This Drink Without Ice

“Ooo a Jacuzzi!” Emilia squealed happily, clapping her hands as they opened the door to the large, luxurious bathroom.

“You can’t use it.” Tom said, so matter of fact.

“Seriously?”

“Yes. No sushi, either.”

“ _What_? Next you’ll be telling me that I can’t have chocolate mousse!”

“Uh…well…”

“For real?”

“Sorry.”

Disappointed though she was, Emilia turned and wrapped her arms around Tom. Sure, the restrictions that she suddenly found upon her life were going to be an adjustment but just the fact that Tom had thrown himself into researching all that stuff was so touching. She hadn’t planned to tell him that she was pregnant when she did but his shock proposal sent the admission falling from her lips. Though she had only known for twenty-four hours before she broke the news, it had been the longest day ever. Emilia had managed to convince herself that Tom would be angry. Pissed off that she didn’t take the morning after pill quick enough. Annoyed that it would ruin their young relationship. Frustrated because maybe he didn’t want children.

Having only been together for a few months, it wasn’t really something they had ever discussed in any great detail.

Emilia certainly hadn’t expected Tom to be happy at the news. But he was. Of course, he had been supremely shocked but once the fog had passed, he had wrapped his arms around her and assured her with his tight embrace. He had led her to the bedroom, laid her down and made slow, deliberate love to her for hours. Tom was always a generous lover but that night he had gone overboard, making sure she felt wave after wave of pure pleasure.

The next day, Emilia had expressed her concerns to Tom that her weight may make the pregnancy more difficult and Tom had promptly booked – and paid way over the odds for – an appointment with one of the best gynaecologists and maternity specialists in Los Angeles, figuring that it would be a great excuse for a little holiday. Not really wanting to stay at his house, they had booked a lavish hotel room in Beverly Hills. They flew over to America from Europe, telling their friends and family that they just wanted a few days alone to reconnect after nearly three weeks apart.

Tom desperately wanted to tell Bill. Hell, he wanted to yell it from the rooftops. But though it was killing him to not tell his twin brother, he had to respect Emilia’s wish not to tell anyone until after they came back from America. Even then, they agreed that they would tell Bill, Sofie, Tom’s parents and no one else until the twelve-week milestone.

“What time is the appointment tomorrow, again?”

“Two in the afternoon. I thought we could go for a nice lunch beforehand in my favourite little Italian place, what do you think?”

“Sounds great,” Emilia yawned as she sat on the sofa, her eyes heavy.

“You should sleep, we’ve had such a long day,” Tom murmured as he sat beside her, putting an arm around her as she lay her head on his shoulder, her eyes closed, “I still can’t believe this is happening.”

“I know,” Emilia yawned, curling her legs up on the sofa, “I’m so happy that you were happy about it being…happy…and…” She trailed off as she fell asleep and Tom shifted his position so that she could lie her head in his lap. He let her sleep for a moment before picking her up in his arms and bring her over to the four-poster bed, lying her in the sheets before heading back to the bathroom.

Tom turned on the Jacuzzi and, as he waited for it to fill up, he pulled out his phone, switching it on for the first time since they landed in the United States.

_I hope you didn’t leave for the US because of me moving? Xx_

_I’m serious about Sofie, you guys need to accept that xx_

_Am I being really arrogant thinking you left because of me? Xx_

_I’m being silly, aren’t I? Sorry, enjoy your holiday xx_

_But if it is because of me and Sof, just call me and we-_

Tom stopped reading when his eyes skimmed down to the fifth message. Normally, he would have phoned Bill straightaway to allay his fears or, at the very least he would have sent him a reassuring message. But of course, with everything going on, reassuring Bill that he was being ridiculous just wasn’t very high on his list of priorities.

It still hadn’t at all sunk in that Emilia was pregnant. He didn’t quite yet believe that she was carrying his child. It didn’t seem feasible that they were going to have a baby.

Delving a hand into his jacket pocket, Tom ran his fingers over the black, velvet ring box. After Emilia’s shock revelation, his proposal had been completely forgotten.

Well. He hadn’t forgotten it. And he was fairly sure that Emilia hadn’t either. But it was as if neither of them wanted to bring it up, feeling like it was really rather unimportant in comparison.

Since Emilia told him that he was pregnant and that she was worried about how her weight might affect things, he had spent hours researching and found that Emilia’s fears weren’t exactly unfounded. Emilia was overweight. That was a simple fact. Though he wasn’t entirely sure what she weighed – it wasn’t exactly something he was particularly concerned with – that was plain to see. And being pregnant while overweight carried some significant health risks, not that he had shared those things with Emilia yet. He didn’t want to freak her out.

But there was a significant risk of gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, high blood pressure, and obstructive sleep apnoea. There was a hugely increased risk of miscarriage and a stillbirth as well as a premature birth and birth defects.

Tom didn’t really know what a lot of those things were, exactly, but he knew that they couldn’t possibly be good.

Tom looked at himself in the mirror as he stripped off, grinning in growing satisfaction. A few months earlier, when he and Emilia had first started dating, he was way too skinny and he had hated it. His cheeks were sunken and when he could bare to look at himself in the mirror because he just thought that he had the body of a fourteen-year-old. Tom wasn’t sure if it was natural or down to the way he lived his life, but he thankfully had a naturally toned body and so, because he was now eating more, his entire body was looking more muscular and attractive. Of course, his thighs were still a monumental concern to him and he went out of his way to avoid exposing them.

While Tom was never shy about taking his shirt off in front of the camera, he would never, _ever_ let anyone take a photograph of his bare thighs and, thankfully, he was fairly sure that there wasn’t one in existence. He seemed to have an attractive image amongst his fans and the media in general and he greatly enjoyed that – he didn’t want anything to ruin what was a massive ego boost for him.

Looking at himself in the mirror, Tom grabbed his vitamin D cream out of his travel bag and rubbed it onto his upper and inner thighs. Closing his eyes, Tom sighed in relief. The patches of psoriasis on his thighs always got particularly itchy after a long flight but he knew better than to indulge in scratching it, tempting though it was. He was taking advantage of them being in California for the gynaecology appointment to get another session of phototherapy with his regular doctor. He hadn’t had time to have a session of it while he had been in Germany and he was looking forward to having it done again, even if it was way overdue. Though it didn’t cure the psoriasis, the improvement it made was absolutely invaluable and it had been so long since an appointment that the vitamin D cream simply wasn’t really doing very much for him anymore.

Not wanting to expose the sensitive skin directly to the hot water, Tom pulled on a tight pair of cotton pants and groaned in relief as he stepped into the Jacuzzi. It marked the first time Tom had been alone since Emilia had dropped her bombshell and he finally had a moment to be alone with his thoughts.

At barely three weeks pregnant, it was probably going to be a little over eight months before their lives were going to change entirely. According to a website Tom had looked at, Emilia’s due date should be around the beginning of January 2018. Which threw the Dream Machine tour into complete disarray. It meant that the encore tour through Europe would take place during her last trimester and that the North America leg would be when the baby was only a month old.

How could he leave Emilia alone for a month with a new-born baby?

How could he take Emilia and a new-born baby on tour for a month?

Neither option made a lot of sense.

Tom shook his head. That wasn’t important right now. What was important was the fact that he was going to be a _father_.

He shivered at the thought.

He was going to have a son or daughter. A person who was half him and half Emilia.

That was insane.

It wasn’t long before Tom felt the jetlag creep up on him and he found himself unable to stave off his heavy eyelids any longer. With a long, loud yawn, he heaved himself up and stepped onto the marbled floor. He didn’t bother to wrap a towel around his waist and opted instead to air dry as he walked quietly into the living area. Closing the door to the bedroom so as not to disturb Emilia who was sleeping soundly, he turned on the television. He switched on some shitty Gordon Ramsay cooking competition and grabbed a cheese baguette and a small cake from the minibar before flopping down onto one of the sofas.

The next morning, Tom was shaken awake and when he opened his eyes, he smiled to himself as he felt Emilia’s arms around him as she lay beside him.

“Good morning,” Tom grinned sleepily, closing his eyes again as he draped an arm around her.

“Why didn’t you come to bed?” She asked softly, kissing his lips.

“I…I think I just fell asleep on the sofa.”

“Ah, yeah, that would explain the half-eaten cheese sandwich on your chest.”

With a groan, they finally both conceded that they had to get up and so, yawning all the way, they both hastily got dressed and got an Uber to Tom’s house so he could pick up his car.

“Hungry?”

“Always,” Emilia grinned as she slid into Tom’s L.A. car. She had seen it briefly when she stayed at the house about a month earlier but didn’t use it, despite Tom’s invitation to do so, “Wow,”

“Yeah, even nicer than the Germany car, right?” Tom smirked and pulled out of the garage, driving out of the secluded community and onto the highway. Not unusually for Los Angeles, the sun was out and it was the kind of hot that Berlin struggled to get to even in the middle of summer. Tom cranked up the air conditioning and they both sighed in relief at the cool air.

“I’m kinda nervous,” Emilia confessed as they drove comfortably down the highway, “I keep thinking that maybe there’s something wrong, you know?” Tom reached over to squeeze her hand, reassuringly.

“There won’t be anything wrong.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know that there won’t be anything wrong today. You’re not far enough along to be testing for stuff. Like, I don’t even think it’s big enough to see yet. She’s just going to give us some advice and prescribe some vitamins and shit like that. No biggie,” Still Emilia didn’t smile, “You’re just forcing yourself to feel nervous about something. I’m here, you’ve got nothing to feel nervous about.” Tom grinned as he saw a small smile finally break out on her lips.

Soon, they arrived at the restaurant and were greeted by an overenthusiastic waiter who greeted them in Italian.

“Un tavolo per due, per favore,” Tom said casually to the waiter, earning himself a surprised frown from Emilia as they were led to a booth at the back of the restaurant and presented with a menu.

“You can speak _Italian_?” Emilia squealed, trying to keep her voice down, “Why didn’t you tell me?!” Tom grinned.

“Why? Does it turn you on?”

“Uh, fucking _yes_!”

“Ok, how about this,” Tom leaned into her, sliding a hand onto her hip as he whispered into her ear, “Ho ordinato questa bibita senza ghiaccio.”

“Oh my God,” Emilia giggled, leaning up to kiss him, “What does that mean?”

“I ordered this drink without ice,” They both burst out laughing, “I only know how to order food and shit.”

“Well, maybe you should tell me that you want to order the bruschetta tonight, hmm?”

When the waiter returned, Tom ordered himself the _Gnocchi alla Sorrentina_ and Emilia the _Lasagna Vegetariana_ along with a bottle of sparkling water.

“Shit, I forgot that I can’t drink.”

“Or smoke,” Tom muttered.

“Oh _fuck_.”

Quite usually for the young couple, they ate together in comfortable peace. Laughing together affectionately as they enjoyed some of the best, most authentic Italian food in California and, indeed, the entire country, the pair of them – and particularly Emilia – relaxed in the face of their appointment that was fast approaching.

They soon finished and Tom threw down two Ben Franklins before they went back to the car.

“So, are you ready?”

“Yeah, I guess maybe I just needed something to eat,” Emilia forced a smile but it was plain to see that she was still really rather nervous. It wasn’t a long drive and soon they were parked outside a large, clinically white building.

“Listen,” Tom said, turning towards Emilia in the car, “It’s going to be fine.”

“I know. But I’m going to get a huge, embarrassing lecture about my weight and shit and…” She trailed off with a shrug.

“They aren’t there to have a go at you, sweet. They just want to help you, that’s all.

“I know, I know,” Emilia sighed, letting herself be pulled into a soft, comforting kiss.

“I’ll be there with you. There’s nothing to be worried about.” After some persuading, Tom was able to coax Emilia out of the car, holding her hand as they headed inside. Registering their presence with the receptionist, it was only a few minutes before a tall brunette called them in, announcing herself as Doctor Katherine Winters. She and Tom made small talk about the weather as they walked down the short corridor while Emilia stayed silent until they stepped into the consulting room which, although plush with leather sofas, was abnormally beige.

“I love your accent, where are you guys from?” Katherine asked with a cheery smile as she invited Tom and Emilia to take a seat on one of the sofas while she sat opposite.

“Germany,” Tom grinned, “We flew in last night. I used to live here but moved back a few months ago.”

“So, my notes say that you believe you’re only around three weeks pregnant?” Katherine asked, still wearing a wide smile.

“Uh…yeah. My period was due last week and we’ve only had unprotected sex once about three weeks ago.” Emilia turned to Tom as he took her hand in his, reassuringly.

“Ok, well, if you’re right, it’s just a little too early to do an ultrasound but I can do a blood test on you today that can tell us exactly how far along you are now but…you haven’t been to a doctor already, correct?”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, why don’t we do a quick urine test, just to confirm your pregnancy?” Katherine smiled encouragingly and Emilia nodded, swallowing.

“Yeah, yeah of course.”

“Should I…?”

“No, no, no need to go back into the waiting room. Emilia, if you come with me, it’s just a very quick test, just like at home, really…” Katherine escorted Emilia into a small adjoining room, presumably to direct her on the test while Tom stayed in the consultant room. He awkwardly relaxed back in the sofa and, not really knowing what he was supposed to do, he pulled out his phone.

_Is something going on? I feel like you’re hiding something? Xx_

_I know I’m not being paranoid xx_

_Would you at least let me know you arrived safe? Xx_

Tom rolled his eyes at Bill’s messages and quickly fired back a reply as he heard Emilia and Katherine finishing up and making their way back.

_We’re fine. Stop worrying x_

“Well, Emilia, you were correct, you are indeed pregnant.” Katherine beamed as they stepped back into the room and they took their respective seats. Tom grinned at Emilia, who was finally showing something of a small smile and took her hand back in his, squeezing.

“So, what do we do now? You said it was too early for an ultrasound?”

“Since you believe you’re only just under three weeks since conception, we wouldn’t be able to detect the pregnancy on an ultrasound quite yet, I’m afraid, but what we can do is a blood test. We have the facilities here to conduct the test and we can get the results back to you by late afternoon tomorrow. That will let us know just how far along you are. Is that something you’d like to do?”

“Yes, definitely.” Emilia nodded.

“Ok, great, we’ll get that done before you leave. So, most people who come in this early just want some general advice, is that what you’re looking for today?”

“Well,” Tom had opened his mouth to speak but Emilia surprised him by piping up first, “I’ve just been worried since I found out because…well, because of my weight.” Tom watched as Katherine nodded sympathetically.

“There are increased risks in regards to certain conditions but it’s important to remember that most women still experience perfectly straightforward pregnancies. But, if it is something that’s bothering you, I can certainly advise you today and then refer you to a nutritionist if you’d like?”

Katherine invited Emilia to step onto the weighing scales, telling her that she didn’t need to know what she weighed but Emilia insisted on knowing, just as Tom expected.

“Ok, you are two hundred and twenty-five pounds and so-” Katherine cut herself off when she saw the confused looks on Tom and Emilia’s faces, “That’s one hundred and two kilograms.” Tom turned to see Emilia looking horrified, “At five foot six – ah, one hundred and sixty-eight centimetres – you are classed as obese. We will need to keep an eye on you as the pregnancy progresses but, for now, like I said earlier, I’d just like to get you in touch with a nutritionist. We have a great one who works here and she deals specifically with pregnant women. But unless you have any pre-existing conditions, I don’t really have much cause for concern right now. I assume you’ve already stopped any smoking and drinking alcohol?”

Tom could only listen as Emilia and Katherine discussed the obvious as well as arranging to have several blood tests done to test for several blood disorders. He was slightly ashamed to note that he started to briefly drift off as they started to discuss folic acid and vitamin D supplements.

“Ok, well, all that’s left is to do those blood tests!”  Tom held Emilia’s hand as they went into the adjoining room.

“Are you ok?” He asked as Katherine drew the first sample.

“Yeah…I think,” She murmured but Tom could see the colour draining from her face.

“I just need to take one more and then we’ll get you a cola, ok? That’ll make you feel better.” When Katherine took another sample, Emilia groaned and squeezed Tom’s hand hard.

“Are you done? She doesn’t look so good.” Tom frowned, concerned.

“I’ll get you that drink, Emilia, the sugar will help.”

Emilia sipped at the can of Coca-Cola, breathing heavily.

“Is that normal?”

“Oh, sure. Most people get at least a little dizzy after a couple of blood samples.” Katherine smiled as Emilia breathed deeply one last time and lifted her head.

“Ok, I feel better,” Emilia smiled, although she was still rather pale, “Is that everything?”

“Yep, nearly. I put together a pack of information for you with general pregnancy advice that you can get from reception on your way out. If you leave the details of your gynaecologist in Germany, we can forward the information to them so you’re all set when you go home.”

They said their goodbyes and, with an arm around her waist, Tom and Emilia picked up the information from reception before they went back outside.

“Are you alright?”

“Do you have any idea how many times you’ve asked me that today?”

“You just look a bit pale still, that’s all.”

“No, really, I’m fine. I dunno, I kinda stopped paying attention after she told me my weight.”

“Oh babe,” Tom drew her into a hug, kissing her cheek, “It’s just a number, it doesn’t mean anything. And you heard what she said, she’s not concerned about anything yet.”

“But what if something happens and it’s my fault?”

“ _Nothing_ is going to happen. I mean, I’ll get you the best care just to put your mind at ease. At this point, the only risk is you getting so stressed out.”

“But-”

“Look, we can either stand here and stress about something that probably won’t even happen. _Or_ we can go back to the hotel and make love for the rest of the day.”

Finally, Tom coaxed Emilia back in the car and they drove silently back to their hotel. Despite his attempts to reassure and comfort her, she was clearly feeling awful about the entire situation. When they had parked, he opened her door and held her hand as they went inside and headed up to their room.

Tom leaned against the door in contemplation as Emilia sighed and wandered into the living area, kicking her shoes off before sitting on the sofa. Eventually, he followed her and sat gingerly on the arm of the sofa, chewing on his lip rings in contemplation for a moment.

“What’s really going on? I mean, I know you were a little worried before the appointment but you were fine in there until she put a figure to your weight. Why? You know what you look like, what difference does a number make?” Tom tried to keep his tone light, not wanting to freak her out more than she already was. But Emilia didn’t respond, instead switching on the television so that _Ellen_ came screaming on. Tom promptly grabbed the remote and switched it right back off again, “Talk to me,” Still Emilia didn’t say anything for a moment, “Em-”

“I’m only going to get bigger,” She murmured, staring straight ahead instead of looking at him, “I’m going to double in size-”

“You’re not going to _double in_ -”

“I’m going to be like a fucking beached whale! And it’s not like I’ll magically lose loads of weight after having the baby either. You’re not going to be attracted to me anymore,” Though she tried to stop it, Emilia burst into tears, holding her face in her hands. Tom felt his heart drop and he slid onto the sofa, wrapping his arms around her to kiss her cheek.

“You don’t think I’m just attracted to you because of how you look, do you? Babe, look, I think you’re sexy as _fuck_ , you know that. But I don’t feel that way just based on your appearance,” Tom ran a hand through her hair, “I’m attracted to you because you’re kind, because you’re funny. Because I can talk to you about anything, knowing that you won’t judge me. Because I felt a connection with you the moment I met you. I don’t care if you’re morbidly obese or if you’re anorexic, it doesn’t make any difference. I mean, what did I say when you told me you were pregnant? I got excited because your tits were going to get bigger,” Tom laughed, brushing the hair away from Emilia’s face as he saw a small smile emerge, “I will still love you because I love _you_. And that’s it.”

“Why do you always know exactly what to say?” Emilia muttered, unable to suppress her smile as she returned Tom’s embrace, “I dunno, I guess I’m just overwhelmed. Or maybe it’s the hormones.”

“Probably both.” They sat together in silence for a moment, Tom’s arms around Emilia as he stroked her long hair affectionately, “So, c’mon. Do you want a boy or a girl?” Tom asked with a smirk.

“Hey, that’s a terrible thing to ask! I don’t mind as long as it’s healthy!”

“So, you want a girl too?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know why.”


	33. Falling In

“Hey there, Tom, how are you?” Tom shook hands with Chris, his consultant as he stepped inside his usual treatment room.

“Not too bad, man, not too bad at all.”

“I didn’t think I’d see you after you went back to Germany. I figured you’d have a machine set up at your place!”

“I did look into it but we rent our apartment and the landlord’s a dick. I’m buying a new place with my girlfriend though so I’ll get one there, for sure.”

As he had done a million times before, Tom stripped off his jeans and briefs behind the curtain and put on the ridiculous tiny pair of paper underpants. He rolled his eyes as he pulled them on. _Why_ did his psoriasis have to be so close to his dick?

Chris knew better than to tell Tom the procedure and so got the handheld machine ready, handing Tom a pair of protective glasses. Tom hopped up onto the table and tried to hide his grimace as he spread his legs slightly.

“So, you have a new girlfriend?”

“Yeah. I was going to move back here but after meeting her I decided to stay in Berlin.”

“Well, if you want, I can get in touch with your local dermatology department in Berlin and send them your medical records. They’ll be able to advise you on the best machine to get.”

Phototherapy wasn’t painful at all, but it wasn’t really very comfortable. Although Tom was never sure whether the uncomfortableness was from the therapy itself or the fact that he was always sure that his cock was visible. Emilia had offered to come with him to the appointment but Tom found it pretty humiliating to have a man essentially shine a light on his inner thighs, even if it was for medical purposes. So, he told Emilia to stay at the hotel and get some rest. After their appointment the day before, they had ordered room service and relaxed watching films until the evening when they had succumbed to spending the night having incredibly passionate sex.

“What with all your travelling, you really should think about getting a portable machine as well. Having a session once a month when you’re actually in Berlin really isn’t enough. You need a session once a month for fifteen months. If you did that, I’m confident that you wouldn’t ever need another session, Tom.”

“Really?” Tom asked, surprised.

“Absolutely. I mean, I’m sure your dermatologist in Berlin will be more than happy to take your money every time you’re there but I know you go on tour for months at a time, right? You can’t keep going on as you are, just having a session of this whenever you’re free is never going to eradicate the problem. And, uh, not to be crude but I can tell you’ve been having more regular sex.”

“You can?”

“Either that or you’ve been wearing tight jeans, which I warned you not to do last time I saw you. Either way, it’s been irritated more than normal.”

“Ah. Definitely the sex,” Tom laughed.

Phototherapy wasn’t a very long process and it was barely ten minutes before Chris switched off the machine and Tom hopped off the table to hide back behind the curtain, breathing a heavy sigh of relief as he pulled on his briefs and jeans. He paid for the session and hurried out to his car, shivering in relief as he closed the door behind him. Taking a deep breath, he was just about to drive off when his phone started vibrating persistently.

“Hey.”

_“Tom, what’s going on? Why haven’t you messaged me back?”_

“Sorry…we’re on holiday. That’s all. We haven’t gone away to avoid you, really.”

_“There’s something going on though, isn’t there?”_

“Why do you think that?”

_“Because, despite what you think, I know you.”_

“There’s nothing going on. Nothing new, anyway. But yes, I’m still pissed with you about Ria and about Hamburg and Sofie.”

_“I thought you’d forgiven me for the Ria thing.”_

“You fucked with our bond. I can’t forgive and forget that so easily. I’m sorry, I have to go.”

Tom hung up the phone with a sigh, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment to regain his composure before he finally pulled out of the car lot and drove back to the hotel, stopping off at a Starbucks on the way.

“Hey, are you ok?” Emilia asked as he walked into the living area, putting the bags of food and tray of coffee on the table, “Oh, sweetie, I can only have a little bit of caffeine and I had a cola earlier-”

“I got you a decaf and a strawberries and cream Frappuccino for later – _no_ caffeine.”

“Aw, you cutie,” Emilia kissed Tom as he sat beside her, swinging an arm around her as he passed her a tomato and mozzarella panini, “So, tell me, how was it?” Tom shrugged as he bit into his egg salad sandwich.

“Fine. It’s a bit itchy,” As if to illustrate his point, Tom spread his legs and scratched his thighs, wincing as he did so.

“Shouldn’t you moisturise it?”

“I’ll go do it after,” Tom muttered, eating silently.

“Why don’t I do it?”

“What?” Tom frowned.

“What?”

“No, you don’t wanna do that.”

“Oh yeah, there’s _no way_ I’d want to rub moisturiser onto your inner thighs. Yeah, that sounds fucking terrible!”

“I said _no_!” Tom burst out, getting up and storming over into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. With a deep breath, Tom pulled the tie out of his hair and ran his hand through his thick locks. Sitting on the edge of the Jacuzzi, Tom took another long, deep breath before unzipping his jeans and sliding them down his legs, kicking them off.

“Tom?” Tom screwed his eyes shut when he heard Emilia’s soft voice on the other side of the door, “Tom, let me in.” Tom didn’t reply, hoping that she would leave but, instead, he found himself nearly falling over himself to try and pull his jeans back up as she opened the bathroom door.

“What are you _doing_? Get out!” Tom cried out, watching as her gaze wandered down to his scarred thighs.

“It’s a bit messed up that we’ve been together for four months, I’m carrying your child and I’ve never seen your thighs before, isn’t it?” With a jaw so tense that he couldn’t speak, he let Emilia take his hand and they walked out of the bathroom, into the bedroom, “Lie down.”

“But-”

“Lie down, Tom,” With a heavy heart, he did what she asked and lay down, “Bend your legs.” Swallowing hard, Tom raised his legs, spreading, and bending them slightly. He had to close his eyes as he saw Emilia reach for the vitamin D cream, his stomach turning as he knew just what was coming next.

“Oh!” He cried out, jerking as he felt Emilia’s hand on his inner thigh, “Em, this is really not necessary.” Against his instincts, he was completely unable to resist letting out a small groan as he felt her start to caress his thigh, the moisturiser soothing his sore skin.

“You know, you don’t have to be perfect all the time.”

“What?”

“How many times have you reassured me about the way I look? How many times have you told me that you don’t care about my weight because it doesn’t matter to you? How many times have you told me that I’m beautiful and you love me because of who I am and not what I am?”

“I don’t know what you-”

“You don’t practice what you preach, Tom. You tell me not to fixate on how I look because it’s just superficial, yet you are so insecure about your skin condition that this is the first time I’ve actually seen it.”

“In no universe, through no one’s eyes, could you ever actually be considered ugly, though.”

“What, and you think you could?”

“You have eyes, don’t you?” Tom could only watch as Emilia continued to massage his thighs but rolled her eyes.

“You think that this makes you ugly? You must hear how ridiculous that sounds. Did you think that I would run away screaming if I saw this? You’re the sexiest man I’ve ever seen, you can’t be perfect. That wouldn’t be fair!” Emilia laughed just a little, cautiously, not wanting to make it sound like she was making fun of him, “Besides, use your imagination a little. Letting me literally _massage_ your thighs…you can’t think of _any_ way in which we could make this fun?”

“Is it weird that we’re having a baby and this is the first time you’ve seen my thighs?”

“I dunno. I guess,” Emilia said, shrugging as she wiped her hands with a makeup wipe.

“I mean, I’m just wondering what else we don’t know about each other.”

“Tom-”

“Is this really a good idea? Should I really be having a baby with you when I’m not even comfortable with you looking and touching me like this? Isn’t that fucked up?” Tom burst out, jumping up to pull his briefs and jeans back up while Emilia just stared at him, bewildered.

“You…you’re not serious? Are you?” Emilia frowned, shaking her head, confused as she watched Tom frantically pull his jacket on.

“I need some air,” Tom muttered, making his way to the door. He was just about to open it when he turned back slightly, “I’m sorry.”

Tom couldn’t tear out of the hotel quickly enough but if he was hoping for fresh air then he was sorely disappointed. The thick Los Angeles air hung around him, still and unmoving. It didn’t really matter though, instead he pulled out a cigarette and look a long, comforting drag.

Except that it really wasn’t very comforting at all.

Was it too much? Was it all too much, too soon?

Emilia was right. It _was_ weird that they were having a child together and yet he still found it pretty distressing to expose his skin condition to her. She was still worried that he didn’t find her physically attractive.

More important was something that Tom was barely able to admit to himself, let alone Emilia.

Tom was happy that Emilia was pregnant, of course he was. But how on Earth was he going to _look after a child_? A defenceless child who depended on him for everything? One time, he was hanging out at Gustav’s place when he had to go and pick his wife up from a bar and Gustav asked him to watch Brittany for thirty minutes while he did so. Tom had _freaked out_ and directly refused to do so.

If he couldn’t face looking after his best friend’s child for _half an hour_ , how on Earth could he look after his own for eighteen years? And it was easier for Gustav; aside from when they went on tour, he could stay at home. It wasn’t so simple for Tom. Despite now basing himself in Berlin, he knew he would regularly have to travel to Hamburg to meet with Bill; California for various business meetings and Paris, Rome, Barcelona…anywhere where promo was needed. How could it be possible to look after a child with such a busy life? His career was, quite literally, his life.

And he didn’t have a clue about babies. They were supposed to have naps and eat weird food (did they even eat food? Or just milk?) and have a routine and Tom was sure he once half-watched a news item about something called ‘controlled crying’. Tom didn’t have a clue about any of that. He didn’t even have a clue about how diapers worked. Did they just slide on like a pair of pants or do you have to tape them up? When do they stop wearing them? How does a small child even use the toilet without falling in?

It wasn’t just a case of actually, physically looking after them, either. It was about looking forward to the future. Putting money aside for their future. Saving money for their education, perhaps investing in property for their future. Tom had been stupid with money as of late. He still had the debt that he owed to Treehouse hanging over his head. Despite earning less than him, Georg and Gustav had significantly more money than he did by virtue of their clever business and investment interests. Tom never did think to put money aside for the future.

_“Tom! Hey, what’s going on? Are you-”_

“Have the venues for the US leg been confirmed yet?” Tom burst out in a panic, his tone perhaps more flustered than he intended it to be.

_“What?”_

“What part of that question didn’t you understand?” Tom muttered impatiently, rolling his eyes.

_“Oh, sorry. No, not yet. Treehouse want me to sign the contracts later this week.”_

“Good. Don’t sign them.”

_“What?”_

“I said, don’t sign them!” Seriously, was Bill acting deaf on purpose?

_“Why?”_

“I can’t…” Tom trailed off with a sigh, “I don’t know if I can do it,” He groaned, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

 _“What are you talking about? What’s going on?”_ Tom could hear the panic in Bill’s voice.

“I can’t talk about it right now. Just listen to me, ok? I don’t know if I can do it.”

 _“Tom, for fuck sake, I can’t not sign the contracts without a proper reason!”_ Tom winced as Bill’s voice notched up to a screech.

“I said calm down! Look, I…I promised Emilia that I wouldn’t.”

_“What’s going on, Tom? You’re freaking me out.”_

“Fuck. Ok. Fine,” Tom coughed, breathing deeply, “She’s pregnant.”

_“WHAT?!”_

“Ok, ok, calm-”

_“She’s PREGNANT?! What the FUCK? Are you for real?”_

“Yes and-”

_“It’s yours, right?”_

“What? Of course, it’s mine!”

_“Sorry! Holy shit!”_

“Yeah, I know, it-”

_“Are you ok with it?”_

“I’m happy, yeah, of course, I just don’t-”

_“This is WILD! I’m going to be an Uncle!”_

“Yeah, congrats and I’m going to be a Dad and I-”

_“Ooo what are you going to name it? You know, Bill is an excellent name for-”_

“Bill, for fuck sake, can I finish a sentence?” Tom cried out with an impatient frown.

_“Sorry. I’m just…well this is fucking wild! You’re going to be a father, that’s incredible!”_

“You don’t…you don’t think it’s too soon?”

_“Well…of course it is. But what does that matter? You two are clearly going to be together forever so-”_

“You really think so?”

_“Of course. Don’t you?”_

“Well, I must do, I was actually proposing when she told me she was-”

_“You PROPOSED?!”_

And so, Tom relayed the entire story of the past few days to his bewildered brother who peppered his story with squeals, a few _‘no fucking way’_ s and one or two _‘holy fuck!’s_.

It wasn’t until he checked his phone that he realised that he had been babbling away for nearly an hour and despite Bill’s desperate pleas for more information and begs to stay on the phone, Tom hung up and lit another cigarette. He checked his pack and realised that he had smoked his way through ten cigarettes since he came outside. He guessed that he had to compensate for not being able to smoke around Emilia.

It helped knowing that Bill was happy about the news. At least he knew that he had someone on his side. Someone outside of the situation who could be there to support them. In hindsight, maybe it hadn’t been a great idea telling Bill. If he hadn’t been so excited and supportive, it would have made Tom’s worries intensify. He didn’t like to borrow money from his brother but at least he knew that it was there if he needed it because he’d been a fucktard with his money again.

“What are you doing out here?” Tom spun around at the sound of Emilia’s voice behind him, immediately dropping his cigarette and stepping on it to stub it out.

 “We should stay in my apartment.”

“What?”

“We should stay in my apartment and purchase a property to rent out.”

“Eh?”

“And we’ll gift it to our child on their twenty first birthday.”

“Tom, are you-”

“Can you imagine how much it’ll increase in value in _twenty-one years?_ ” Tom grinned, “If we buy a place now for five hundred grand then our kid will be a millionaire when they become an adult.”

“You know, you’ll be forty-nine on their twenty first birthday,” Emilia smirked as she saw the horrified look on Tom’s face.

“That’s a disgusting thought,” Tom brought Emilia in for a hug, “I’m sorry. I freaked out. I was just thinking about this whole thing and whether it was too crazy. But I talked to Bill – I _know_ , I wasn’t supposed to tell him, I’m sorry – but he made me see that it doesn’t fucking matter that we haven’t been together very long and that we don’t know everything about each other. We’re going to end up together anyway, so who cares? And we-”

“Shut up,” Emilia laughed, “Look, it’s huge and it’s scary, I know, I’m scared too!”

“You are?”

“Are you kidding? I’m fucking terrified but we can do it. _You_ can do it.”


End file.
